Tunisia: Women celebrate their rights

Decades of protest have paid off: Tunisia's parliament has passed a historic law on violence against women. It punishes all forms of violence and sets the country up for a potential cultural revolution.

Deutsche Welle, 27 July 2017

Tunisia's parliament approved legislation on Wednesday that protects women from all forms of violence. The country's Family Minister Naziha Laabidi called it a "historic project."

"It's a very important law," said Abir Alhaj Mawas, a sociologist who works for Terre des Femmes, a women's rights nongovernmental organization. The law addresses women who are isolated, she said, so that they can enjoy rights already common for women elsewhere, such as in Europe.

The centerpiece of the law is, for Mawas, the paragraph dealing with punishing domestic violence. "Rape within the family has long been handled as a private matter easy to cover up, rather than a crime," she said. "This has now changed."

No safety in marriage

The new law changes how violence against women is prosecuted. Authorities must investigate a matter even if the woman herself rescinds her claim, regardless of cause for the claim's withdrawal. The law sees to the legal and psychological support for women who have been victims of violence in a way that aims to "support human rights and gender equality," Minister Laabidi said. Shelters and information centers are to be established where women can receive immediate assistance.

Sociologist Mawas has welcomed
the new law

Tunisia's parliament also addressed a long-time demand of women's rights activists by striking down the paragraph protecting adult men from prosecution for having sex with a minor if he married her.

Violence by the numbers

Many women in Tunisia suffer from violence and harassment. A recently published study found that 64 percent of the 4,000 women surveyed would seek the permission of a male family member before leaving home. Nearly 70 percent reported being insulted on public transport, and 76 percent of married women reported physical and psychological violence at home.

Such violence has a number of sources, Mawas said, including ideology and false interpretations of the Quran. The 2011 wave of uprisings across the Arab world, dubbed the Arab Spring, made matters for women worse, Mawas said. Protests often took an authoritarian turn, and women received the brunt of the violence, she said.

Social conditions are also cause for violence against women. Poorly educated women have limited employment opportunities and can easily become victims of violence. "These women lack the means to make good on their rights," Mawas said.

In Tunisia, the protests in favor of expanding women's rights paid off

Conservative criticism

There was broad support across Tunisian society for the new law, with calls for a cultural reform that compels men to accept women as equals. But by conservatives' religious standards, a person is a consenting adult from the age of 13, Islamic politician Noureddine Bhiri told the newspaper Jeune Afrique. Lawmaker Salem Labiadh told Tunisia's Business News newspaper that the new law "can lead to a radical feminism, destroy the foundation of the family and legalize homosexuality."

Some readers reacted with disdain and mockery in the newspaper's letters to the editor section.

Backward thinking

There are also men who deny their wives rights without religious cause, due to external pressure, Mawas said. "They would be heavily criticized for giving their wives their freedom," she said, adding "even secular men are influenced by a religious climate."

Women in the Arab world continue to suffer under conservative dogma, wrote the Tunisian newspaper, Le Temps. "This must change if we really want equality and dignity to become a reality."

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"Listening to the Voice of Spirit" (2) - Feb 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (DNA Efficiency is on average at 35 percent now) - (Text version)

“… With free choice, the percentage of DNA efficiently started to go down as humanity grew. As soon as the DNA started to lose percentage, the gender balance was dysfunctional. If you want to have a test of any society, anywhere on the planet, and you want to know the DNA percentage number [consciousness quota] as a society, there's an easy test: How do they perceive and treat their women? The higher the DNA functionality, the more the feminine divine is honored. This is the test! Different cultures create different DNA consciousness, even at the same time on the planet. So you can have a culture on Earth at 25 percent and one at 37 - and if you did, they would indeed clash. …”

“… You're at 35. There's an equality here, you're starting to see the dark and light, and it's changing everything. You take a look at history and you've come a long way, but it took a long time to get here. Dear ones, we've seen this process before and the snowball is rolling. There isn't anything in the way that's going to stop it. In the path of this snowball of higher consciousness are all kinds of things that will be run over and perish. Part of this is what you call "the establishment". Watch for some very big established things to fall over! The snowball will simply knock them down. …”