Tunisian women launch appeal for rights
WE PUBLISH below a statement by Tunisian women on the occasion of International Women's Day, March 8, 1986. The statement is not only an expression of the present state of the women's movement in Tunisia. It describes as well the of the mass movement in general in
A decade has passed since the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized March 8 as International Women's Day. This day first and foremost commemorates a strug gle, that of the striking New York textile workers who were violently repressed for their century-long defence of the right to work.
On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Code du Statut Personnel [Personal Rights Code], it is appropriate that we examine the current meaning of the rights "bestowed" upon women thirty years ago. The Code and the body of legislation flowing from it do indeed protect some of the rights of women and allow them to partici pate in civil life. However, although this reformist legislation was a considerable advance for its time, it constitutes, at least for all women born after 1956, a minimal threshold below which we must never again fall. ...
The official self-satisfied pronouncements can hardly hide the fact that women - in the family, in their marriages, in the streets and at work -continue to suffer from a devalued and inferior status. This clearly reveals that not only do social and individual attitudes and practices often fall short of the intent of the legislation, but the application of the law itself sometimes fails to live up to its text. This places the government itself at odds with its own declarations.
This state of affairs renders the status of women all the more precarious since while they must support the official positions, they are thus placed on the defensive in relation to their newly acquired rights and in the face of backward-looking statements and practices. This leaves the door open to retrogression, and all the more since the choices made on the woman question have not evolved toward the materializing of the new rights
International Viewpoint 19 May 1986 situation of workers and the state contemporary Tunisia. to which women aspire.
One of the most endangered rights today is the right to work. In many sectors women still make up a labor force that is unqualified, under-paid and deprived of all job benefits and security.
The improper dismissals which have hit women particularly hard for a number of years are likely to reach alarming proportions today when illegal and arbitrary layoffs in many sectors have become frequent.
It is also the women workers who bear the brunt of the imposition of half-time work. In fact, trapped in a double workday, in the absence of the minimum social structures that would alleviate their domestic and material tasks, many women are "opting" for half-time work. Trade unions muzzled
Are not these wrongful layoffs or the "choice of half-time" steps toward pushing women back into the kitchen? What, then, becomes of the right to work, which is one of the aspects of the emancipation of women over which the official speech-making waxes so enthusiastic.
Since their right to work is limited, women are also deprived of their trade-union rights, of representative bodies through which their just demands could be voiced, since the UGTT [General Union of Tunisian Workers] and all of its legitimate structures are muzzled today. Worse still, in the critical situation in which we live, the actions of women trade unionists who have reportedly joined their male comrades in struggle are even denigrated by intimations that this involves prostitution. This attitude, both based on women's sexual oppression and in tum reinforeing it, can
TUNISIA only remove women from the social and trade-union battlefield, discredit their struggle in the eyes of the public and make even more precarious their position as workers. That is why today, since women constitute the most vulnerable - because the most defenceless - category of workers, they will bear the brunt of the crisis.
Marginalized as women, exploited as workers, we are today denied our citizenship in that the violation of individual and civil liberties has become the daily lot of citizens.
The trade unions have been brought to heel, the independent press gagged, political organizations strictly con- political organizations strictly controlled and the university's immunity violated. Even the Tunisian Human Rights League has been banned. These most provocative elements of the current situation convey perfectly the arbitrary and authoritarian condition of our society today.
This arbitrariness and authoritarianism take the form of "cop rule" in the streets and in private life, with its daily share of roundups, of beatings, of illegal arrests and detentions and of frameups.
Eroded from within, ossified on the outside because it is incapable of offering dynamic solutions for the aspirations of a changing society, the whole system is in crisis.
Even this elementary form of liberalization of public and political life called "pluralism" has been called into question. This has led not only to the failure of the project of a society oriented toward democracy for all, but, worse yet, by allowing the hideous specter of totalitarianism to emerge, it has pushed our country to the edge of the abyss.
That is why, if our rebellion is fierce, it is coupled with a profound anxiety.
What future do they plan for us, the women and men of our country?
What kind of democracy can women aspire to where there is no respect for democratic principles?
What rights can they hope to claim where arbitrariness rules?
Let us dedicate March 8, 1986, to the launching of an appeal to women, to all democratic forces and to our people altogether that not only the rights of women but of all our people be preserved. Leila Hamrouni, Hafidha Chbir, Nozha Skik, Naila Jrad, Them Abdelkafi, Suzanne Jrad, Faouza Chebbi, Zayneb Samendi, Jaouda Bkir, Selma Zmerli, Nadia Hakimi, Zoubeida Arfaoui, Olfa Latrach, Saida Aoun, Azza Ghonmi, Dorra Mah Foudh, Rafiga Kilani, Mounia Abid, Faiza Mrabet, Ilhem Marzouki.
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