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Tunisia records its first case of coronavirus infection on March 2, 2020. On March 22, the whole country barricades itself to experience an unprecedented situation of nationawide lockdown, which lasts until May 3.
The country saw a closure of schools, cafes and restaurants, of stadiums, places of worship and culture, courts, borders, a ban on movement between regions, a shutdown of most public institutions and factories. Freedoms have never been so challenged, controlled, checked, or even overlooked.
In this context of restrictions on the right to mobility, Tunisian women have suffered physical violence at the hands of their husbands, fathers and brothers. What these attacks have revealed is the limitation of the legal arsenal supposed to protect their physical integrity, particularly the Law of July 2017 on the eradication of violence against women, which was an avant-garde legislation formulated according to international standards which clearly define domestic violence, support victims and provide for the establishment of specialised reception units within police stations and stations of the National Guard of female victims of violence.
Women victims of attacks have been faced with an uphill battle in an unprecedented situation in Tunisia where all services including social, educational, legal and reproductive health services were suspended for nearly three weeks
On March 29, eight days after the beginning of the general lockdown, and during a broadcast on the private radio Mosaique FM, Asma Shiri, Minister of Women, Children and the Elderly, indicates that the number of attacks against women “has increased fivefold compared to the same period in 2019”.
According to the Minister: “more than 40 women victims of violence were reported between March 23 and March 29 against 7 alerts over the same period in 2019. Most victims are women living in the hinterlands of the country, aged from 30 to 40 years old and have an elementary and secondary school level.”
The assaults are verbal and physical, and some have required hospitalisation. Moreover, according to government figures, during the month of April violence against women increased seven-fold and then nine-fold compared to the same period of the previous year.
An uphill battle
“My mum and I were kicked out of our home by my father. In a fit of anger, he ended up kicking his entire family out. We drove most of the night before staying with relatives. It was only thanks to the support of the Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates (ATFD) (Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) that our complaints were taken seriously by the special units to investigate offenses of violence against women,” recalls Ines, an activist living in a residential area of Tunis.
Violence against women as a way of exercising control over women and girls has in fact turned out to be transversal and can affect all social classes.
“There were tensions even among the upper classes where in some households the wife teleworked during lockdown and the husband did not. A competition then settled in as men were not assuming their full availability inside the house that according to them was very gendered,” says lawyer, activist and feminism expert Hafidha Chekir.
Women victims of attacks have been faced with an uphill battle in an unprecedented situation in Tunisia where all services including social, educational, legal and reproductive health services were suspended for nearly three weeks.
On the other hand, two years after their establishment, the special units established within the national police and national guard stations seem to have been somewhat deficient.
“This is not the moment. We have other fish to fry!” replied several officials of these teams to women victims of domestic violence, testifies Hafidha Chekir.
According to Yosra Frawes, President of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, the special units operated according to the pace of the pre-lockdown: “That is, from Monday to Friday, until 4 p.m. They are unable to handle violence peak times. When women are assaulted during the weekend, they are obliged to go to regular police stations.”
The decision to postpone all civil case hearings including those relating to reconciliation taken on March 29 has disrupted the access of women to justice. With the increasing physical, emotional and economic vulnerability of women, civil society urged on April 20 the Supreme Judicial Council to end impunity of attackers. The Council then promised the gradual return to work of the courts as from May 4, 2020.
Discriminatory stereotypes
Beyond the failure to care for women victims of violence, their access to services are limited to civil society organisations, also under lockdown, and only providing psychological and legal support services by telephone. This frustration is compounded by discriminatory and disqualifying stereotypes of women which apparently are increasing during pandemic times.
Sexist jokes and comments such as "take advantage of this period to train your wife, the courts are closed!" abound on online social networks.
In an article published on the Réalités website on April 22, the media expressly takes sides with the offending husband, justifying, even trivialising and normalising the violence and ignoring the suffering of the victim.
“Since the beginning of the mandatory lockdown in Tunisia, husbands are obliged to stay at home, and in permanent contact with their wives. This is an unprecedented situation that they are not used to and they lose their way too often.”
Rather absent on television -except to talk about health issues- Tunisian women ended up being the subject of a curious government decree issued on May 2, 2020 to mark the start of the targeted end of lockdown.
The text provides for keeping in total lockdown several categories of people, including the elderly aged over 65 and mothers of children under 15, when economic activity resumed as of Monday May 4. Faced with the protests and pressures of civil society expressed through social networks, the government backtracks, cancels the decree and pretends an error in its formulation.
In a report published in June by the feminist NGO Beity (My Home), founded by the lawyer and feminist Sana Ben Achour, entitled: “Covid-19, a revealing and aggravating factor of intersectoral inequalities towards women,” the Association recommends drawing a lesson from the period experienced by Tunisians over the months of 2020.
“It is high time we get out of the “tinkering imposed by emergency” to resolutely address the aftermath of COVID-19,” she advocates. “A feminist public policy based on an intersectional approach to social relations and aimed at empowering women, is what we need.”