Sit-ins in Tunis protesting violence against women

Hundreds staged a demonstration in the Tunisian capital on November 30 in protest against gender-based violence and in support of the rights of women. The demonstrators who carried brooms called for cleansing their country from all forms of violence against Tunisian women. Participants in the rally which was called by some 50 local NGOs, chanted slogans including, ‘A feminist revolution against backwardness is an obligation’; ‘No violence’; ‘Gender-equality does not kill, violence does’, and ‘One regime ends, another begins and violence stays put’. Some women also knocked on steelpans. The former head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Monia Bin Juma’, one of the rally organizers, said violence against women is an indicator of a backward mindset. For her part, demonstrator Salma Bahr appealed to the authorities to end all forms of gender-based violence and to act strictly and responsibly against perpetrators. It should be noted, that the mobilization of the Tunisian civil society has grown since October 11, 2019, after a video posted by a high school student went viral. The video showed a member of the legislature behaving indecently in front of the school. Also, recalling that the Centre for Research, Studies, Documentation and Information on Women, a government institution, has launched, end of October, an awareness campaign on sexual harassment in all public transport with the aim to encourage victims to break silence and report assaults. (An Nahar, November 30, 2019)