TUNIS — The National Union of Tunisian Women (UNFT) sounded the alarm on Aug. 13, the country’s National Women’s Day, over a recent surge in femicides that has stunned the North African country. In a statement, the NGO qualified the killings as a “serious phenomenon that threatens the society,” and cited at least 15 femicides over the past seven months.
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In June, as Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha, Kairouan province was shocked by the killing of a woman named Sabrin at the hands of her husband. The man stabbed his wife to death in the street after a quarrel.
Two months earlier, during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, a man killed his wife, her mother and her aunt. The murders came just one day after a court finalized their divorce. The man had threatened to kill his wife if she sought a divorce, and the woman had reported his threats to police.
According to the UNFT, one femicide occurs in Tunisia every two weeks; that figure raises fears among women, as well as questions about the authorities’ silence despite the guarantees provided by the existing legal framework.
Negative indicators
The ongoing campaign is not the first against gender-based violence in Tunisia. In May 2021, there was a similar campaign following the murder of Refka Cherni. The 26-year-old mother was shot dead by her husband, a policeman with the Tunisian National Guard.
Before her murder, Cherni had reporter her husband’s violence to the police. He threatened to kill her if she pursued the complaint, so she dropped it, her husband was released and killed her that same day.
Police officers usually discourage women from filing their complaints.
A report by two women rights groups recorded 25 femicides in Tunisia in 2023. Husbands were the perpetrators in 13 cases, fathers in three cases, and other relatives in four cases. The report also shed light on the state’s failure to stop domestic violence against women, especially murder. For example, existing laws require the transfer of the victim women and their children, if warranted, to safe places in coordination with government agencies. But that did not happen with Sabrin and Cherni.
State silence kills
Women’s associations and human rights activists took to the streets in mid-August to express their anger and condemn all crimes against women with the slogans “State silence kills women,” “Believe the victim and respond to calls for immediate protection,” and “Women are being killed and the authorities are asleep.”
Naila Zghlami, head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, blamed government agencies for depending largely on family mediation to settle disputes between women and their husbands or other relatives. “The impunity also encourages criminals to commit their crimes without fear,” she said.
Rania Al-Zaghdoudi, a rights lawyer and feminist, believes that the reason for the surge of attacks against women is “the misapplication” of laws that include “good mechanisms to protect abused women.” Another reason is the reluctance of police officers to open a report for women complaining from their husbands or relatives, she said, adding that police officers usually discourage women from filing their complaints, and ask them to return to their homes.
Al-Zaghdoudi called for monitoring law enforcement agencies and speeding up legal procedures, noting that “this is the role of the state in the first place.”
