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On 9 May 2021, aged 26 and mother of a two-year-old boy, Refka Charni was shot at close range by her husband, a National Guard officer in Kef, in the north-western region of the country. Yet, she had filed a complaint against him for domestic violence on 7 May. However, she had to withdraw her complaint on 8 May due to family pressure. Refka succumbed to her injuries on the evening of 9 May in hospital after being shot five times by her husband who was arrested by the Kef National Security.
The tragic fate of Refka is part of a dark series of recent crimes in which the victims, just like everywhere across the world, are women, mostly victims of extreme violence inflicted upon them by their spouses or fiancés. Between January and April 2021, at least five cases of femicide hit the headlines in Tunisian newspapers.
“Given the extent of abuses against all these women, this is a State crime!”
exclaims sociologist Nabila Hamza.
These human rights violations were further compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures. In 2020, violence against women increased nine-fold compared to previous years. According to a recent UN Women survey, more than a quarter of Tunisian women did not feel safe at home, while more than half of those interviewed, both men and women, had witnessed or knew a woman who had suffered violence since the emergence of the pandemic.
“I am the next victim”
The murder of Refka Charni has revived the debate on domestic violence and on the traditions and mentalities that encourage women to keep silent, forgive and let go of spousal violence. A disastrous case that also recalls to what extent the phenomenon continues to be concealed by national laws, excused and trivialised by the dominant practice of administrative bodies. A photo campaign was immediately set up on social networks. It was initiated by actress Sawssen Laâlej who brandished a slate above her head on which it read: “I am the next victim. Today, it is Refka, tomorrow it will be your sister. Today, it is Refka, tomorrow it will be your daughter. Your mentality is killing us. Enforce the law!”
Tunisia had indeed adopted an organic law for the elimination of violence against women (Law n° 58-2017) but the country has failed to implement this legislation in many ways. Yosra Frawes, lawyer and former President of the Association tunisienne des Femmes démocrates (ATFD – Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) states that it is not enough to pass a law against violence to solve this scourge.
“Four years after the enactment of this law, the State is not implementing enough resources to enforce this legal text. The training of officers working in units specialising in combating violence against women remains unsteady and the authorities do not provide enough accommodation centres to accommodate abused women”, accuses the lawyer.
Hatred, jealousy and deviance
Moreover, the law continues to use the word “homicide” when referring to the murder of women even if they are killed because of their gender particularly because they want to free themselves from a possessive husband or a jealous fiancé or from the hatred, deviance and aggressiveness of a brother or a father. It is a “gender-based” murder with a “misogynistic” motive, reinforcing the patriarchal nature of the relations between men and women; it is a tool of repression for the maintenance of male domination,” protests the feminist lawyer Sana Ben Achour.
“Naming is recognising. The question that arises is how to make the criminal law evolve by integrating “femicide” or aggravating sexist circumstances in order to allow the specific qualification of violence committed against women because they are women,” asks Sana Ben Achour.
Sana Ben Achour approves Nabila Hamza who speaks of State crime when referring to impunity that characterises this crime, its prevailing trivialisation and refusal to listen to the suffering of women. “For a femicide to take place, silence, omission, negligence and the partial or total collusion of the authorities responsible for preventing and eradicating these crimes, their gender blindness or their sexist and misogynistic prejudices on women, all converge in a criminal way.”
But how can one find an Arabic translation for femicide? The Lawyer suggests the expression “Ightiyal annissa” (the targeted murder of women), a compound word that describes all the aggressiveness and misogyny premeditated spirit characteristic of this phenomenon.
