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 72) Equality was institutionalized in 2016 though the creation of the Peer Council for Equality and Equality of Opportunity, a body that seeks to introduce a gender- based approach to planning, programming, evaluation and budgeting in order to eliminate all forms of discrimination between women and men. With a view to ensuring equality in employment and wages, which is enshrined in the legislation, the labour inspection authorities adopt deterrent measures to address non-compliance by employers with the relevant provisions of the Labour Code.
Para 76) In addition, sectoral protocols concerning awareness-raising were signed by all relevant ministries in December 2016 pending the signing of a multisectoral agreement in due course. The provisions of Decree No. 35 of 2011, which enshrined the principle of parity between women and men in rotation-based electoral lists, helped to increase the number of women in the National Constituent Assembly. However, they occupied only 65 of the 217 seats, that is to say 29.95 per cent. The percentage recorded in the 2014 legislative elections rose to 31.3 per cent of the seats in the Assembly of Representatives of the People. This ratio evolved when vacancies occurred in the Assembly, rising to 34.56 per cent, or 75 seats occupied by women. As a result, the principle of horizontal and vertical parity was enshrined in the electoral bill for the municipalities, which will lead to an increase in the participation of women in local government.
Para 77) In 2012 a number of programmes and activities were organized to encourage women to participate in public and political life by raising women voters’ awareness of the initiative aimed at including them in electoral lists, involving them in voting procedures, and supporting their participation in the running of polling stations and the monitoring of elections. The events included an international seminar on the political participation of women in October 2012.
Para 78) The Ministry of National Defence organized a seminar on future perspectives for women members of the armed forces in the context of the 5+5 Defence Initiative. The seminar was attended by various stakeholders from Tunisia and abroad. It established a committee to study the situation of women in the armed forces with a view to combating various forms of gender-based discrimination. Women have also been involved in all areas of military action and enabled to occupy a number of leadership positions.
Para 79) In the area of employment, a national programme was established to promote women’s economic initiatives by creating a special credit line and introducing facilitating conditions. In addition, training, assistance and support has been provided for women entrepreneurs. The programme is supervised by a management unit to ensure its compliance with the objectives of the programme to promote equality between women and men that was established in 2016.
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.

UN Compilation:
Para 72) HRW noted that the 2014 Constitution provides improved protection for women’s rights and obligates Tunisia to work towards achieving gender parity in elected assemblies during national, regional and municipal elections.