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Beity -my house- is a Tunisian shelter for women victims of violence and precariousness nestled in a tiny alley of the medina, on the edge of the souks and a few meters from downtown Tunis.
No inscription indicating the purpose of the place is displayed on this former primary school, once dilapidated and now rehabilitated to come to the aid of crumbling lives. Anonymity is respected as a protection against husbands or violent companions, a family on the lookout and a society, which is not very helpful to all these women either in an emergency situation or having sometimes chosen a model of conduct that is “outside the norm”.
A space for fragile fates
The initiative was born from the proliferation of civil society groups and the emergence of opportunities after the revolution of January 14, 2011. The non-profit “Beity” was created by lawyer, feminist and human rights activist, Sana Ben Achour a few months after the Tunisian revolution.
The lawyer developed the project based on exploratory studies and consultations with several of her friends. The Ministry of Social Affairs approved the initiative and made an old, abandoned school available to her in exchange of its transformation into a social project.
Responding to a real need, the project quickly received financial support especially from the Nordic countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. UNFPA and the “Association de Sauvegarde de la medina”(the Association for the Preservation of the Medina) provided technical and logistical support. The Spanish Cooperation Agency (AECID) provided support for its equipment and operational aspects. The project has established partnerships with “Lawyers without Borders”, as well as other national and international organizations. This was able to prove very quickly how useful it was to the city and to all the fragile fates the city and society can engender.
“I dreamed of a shelter for women in distress situated in a historic urban environment, whose patrimonial burden, the social fabric and the urban function within the agglomeration, make it a high place of exchange, of identification, socialization and paradoxically a place of acceptance of the other,” remembers Sana Ben Achour, President of the Beity Association.
Four types of accommodation
A large courtyard with a blossoming jasmine tree serves as a performance space, a space for cultural encounters of all kinds and in 2019, even a fashion show with outfits designed by the residents was organized. Ten well-lit rooms surround the patio on two floors and a dining hall overlooks the courtyard. The shelter offers dignified living conditions. The kitchens, the living rooms, the children’s playroom and the reception areas are spick and span.
In the training room we met Amel*, a Tunisian who lives at the center since November 2020 and Sally*, a sub-Saharan immigrant, both in the middle of a conversation.
Unlike in the early years, when Beity hosted up to 30 people at the same time, due to reasons related to the Covid-19 situation, currently, only 12 women live here.
Wafa Fraous describes the four types of accommodation provded by Beity:
“First of all, emergency accommodation particularly concerns women victims of domestic violence and their children. Secondly, the shelter is a transit for immigrant women. Psychological stabilization is provided to young women in psychological distress who need appropriate follow-up. Lastly, socio-economic integration helps women looking for a life project, to whom we provide training aimed at empowering them economically. Welcoming women within the walls of the center can last between a day and more than one year. It indeed takes time to overcome traumas linked to different forms of violence, such as forced marriage, sexual violence, rape, and online harassment and blackmail.”
Women living in the shelter are divorced, single mothers, wives fleeing a violent home, immigrants, poor and homeless women, lesbians rejected by their families, students without resources… All are women with rough life courses.
“The center is a space of support and a possible stepping-stone towards a more secure future,” says Wafa Fraous.
It indeed takes time to overcome traumas linked to different forms of violence, such as forced marriage, sexual violence, rape, and online harassment and blackmail.
With the outbreak of the health crisis in the year 2020, the center witnessed a peak with the hosting of 206 women.
One psychologist and several doctors regularly visit the premises. Artists, designers, coaches and lawyers regularly pass by too. In Beity, great importance is given to the effectiveness of a multifaceted support strategy, one that is likely to provide women with a valuing self-image. Particularly faced with the persistence of institutional deficit with regard to the care of women in vulnerable situations, “Beity” primarily relies on the support of civil society networks.
Caregivers: a promising sector
Beity provides three professional training courses. The first one was set up in 2018 in the framework of the Beyt-Sawa project, an initiative supported by the Swiss Drosos Foundation. This is a training in the profession of social work consisting of six-months-long theoretical and practical courses with four months of internships in various public hospitals with which the NGO has concluded agreements.
The other two training courses were launched in 2021, in the new third space of “Beity” called Bahja (Joy) set up for the well-being of women and the promotion of their rights. These training courses focus on professions of body care, aesthetics, hairdressing as well as sewing and craft.
“The employability rate of our caregivers who work with families, children, the disabled and the elderly, has reached 80%. Once their obtain their diploma, we follow the caregivers in their socio-professional integration. “Beity” takes care of the contract. It is a tripartite contract between the employee, the employer and the Association,” explains the training manager Hela Trifi.
Amel, whom we met during one of the training sessions at “Beity”, has been living in the shelter for a year now. She is a 38-year-old single mother, a fighter and a determined woman. She fully assumes her stigmatized and socially disqualified status because in violation of the model of the conjugal family, proclaimed as the basic cell in the Constitution of 2014.
Amel is taking sewing lessons and seems very happy with the sewing machine just provided by another association, a friend of Beity. The work she does for an NGO, which produces pieces inspired by local crafts as part of a fair-trade project, provides her with precious resources for her life after the Centre.
She tells us her story:
“The Covid crisis was fatal for my baby and me. In March 2020, the factory where I worked closed its doors. Alone, with no family, I was in an extreme situation. I started making diapers out of dishcloths for my little girl. In desperation and utterly disoriented, I found myself in the children’s delegate’s office. She was the one who sent me to Beity. Luckily a place was available a few days after and I found nothing but empathy, love and respect here. Full of hope for the future, I dream of a life in pink for my baby, I see us in a small house, which I would decorate to my taste.”
“I’m passing”, “I’m running”, “thank you, thank you”
Wafa Fraous evokes all these life experiences of sub-Saharan women welcomed by the shelter, who have been through situations resembling slavery in every way.
Originally, they used the services of African and Tunisian intermediaries to enroll in private faculties in Tunis. Upon arrival in Tunis, they become victims of networks of scammers and human traffickers. They turn into domestic workers, forced to work for free from early morning until late at night because in the meantime the Tunisian intermediary will have pocketed eight months of the young woman’s salary in advance and disappeared into the wild.
Fleeing the hell of trafficking and servitude, many of these African women seek refuge at the center, which provides them with legal advice and helps them to rebuild their life and return to their country if they wish.
Sana Ben Achour remembers a story that particularly marked her. It is the story of a young Tunisian girl living abroad with her husband and two children. Forcibly returned to Tunisia on vacation, she is then kidnapped by her husband, a violent man expelled from the host country who confiscates her travel documents.
He prevents her from returning to live in Europe where she has found a stable job after years of endeavors and learning. With the help of her children, she ends up fleeing the matrimonial home, the domain of the family tribe.
“We have been in a race against time to update passports, establish “laissez-passer”, book plane tickets, ensure that there are no legal procedures to ban leaving the country, get in touch with national authorities -the directorates of the Ministry of the Interior and the border police. On the day of departure, the wait was endless. The sounds of her mad rush to catch the plane after the long and tedious police and customs checks, the cries of encouragement from the airmen and travelers, her panting voice on the phone saying, “I’m passing”, “I’m running”,“I’m there”,“thank you, thank you…” will ring in my ears forever!” recalls Beity’s President, trembling with emotion.
