UPR Sexual Rights Database

National Report:
Para 70) The Ministry for Women, the Family and Children protects the rights acquired by women even before the promulgation of the Constitution. With a view to ensuring that women have access to its services in both urban and rural areas, 24 regional delegations for women’s and family affairs were established in 2013 to cover the entire territory of the Republic. The Ministry was restructured with the aim of supporting equality of opportunity and gender equality, integrating women into social and economic life, and promoting the economic empowerment of women by creating administrative bodies tasked with monitoring and opposing discrimination and violence against them, an economic empowerment authority and an authority for the advancement of rural women.
Para 80) Many programmes have been developed to support the economic and social empowerment of women, in particular the integrated national project to prevent school dropout among girls in rural areas, which is implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Interior and the Al-Madanya civil society association, which supports rural school transport. A multisectoral agreement was signed for the purpose in April 2015. A study is currently being conducted of the employment of women in rural areas and the extent to which they benefit from social welfare in five governorates.
Para 81) A literacy education programme was launched in 2016. It is based on a Prime Ministerial Decree of 17 December 2015 concerning the introduction of a literacy education programme involving the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry for Women, the Family and Children, and the Ministry of Education. In October 2016 a protocol specifying the terms and conditions to be met by parties involved in transporting female employees in the agricultural sector was signed.
Para 82) Access to educational services, medical clinics and contraceptives continues to be provided free of charge in 36 rural centres located throughout the country. Thirty-two teams and two sanatoriums ensure that women in remote areas have access to such services. Measures are being taken to increase the proportion of women in rural areas who benefit from at least one pregnancy monitoring clinic with a view to achieving a ratio that is closer to that recorded for women living in urban areas, which is 98.2 per cent. Tunisia admits that, notwithstanding its efforts, it has been unable to attain the aspired average of four pregnancy monitoring clinics throughout all regions of the country. As a result, 15 per cent of women who have already given birth were unable to access such clinics, especially in mid-western, north-western and southern areas.
Para 83) Notwithstanding the improvement in health-care coverage in rural areas, there are still shortcomings, especially in regional areas, in access to family planning services. According to a national multiple indicator survey of the health-care situation of women and children, the rate of failure to meet contraceptive needs exceeds 10 per cent in the mid- western region, compared with 7 per cent at the national level. There are also major regional disparities in maternal mortality rates. Thus, the ratio exceeds 56 deaths per thousand live births in the south-eastern region, totals 67 deaths in the north-western region, and is estimated at 27.9 deaths in the north-eastern region.

National Report:
Para 68) The Constitution enshrines the principle of equality between women and men by using both the masculine and feminine forms of the term “citizen”.
Para 75) An Organic Bill aimed at eliminating violence against women was referred to the Assembly of the Representatives of the People for discussion and adoption in July 2016. The Bill, which adopts a comprehensive approach, provides for prevention, deterrence, protection and the establishment of institutional mechanisms. An advocacy and support plan has been developed for the Organic Bill as well as a legal framework applicable to care centres for women victims of violence. Sectoral protocols concerning care for women victims of violence have been developed (for the sectors of women, the family, childhood, health, justice, the interior and social affairs) as well as a concise procedural manual for their sectoral care.