PRESS CONFERENCE BY TUNISIA'S MINISTER FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY TUNISIA'S MINISTER FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Tunisia's key objective of tolerance and openness, especially in its approach towards women's rights, should not lead to criticism from other Arab countries, because those objectives are based on the country's Arab, Muslim and African values, with which it is very comfortable, the Minister for Women and Family Affairs of Tunisia, Neziha Zarrouk, told a United Nations Headquarters press conference today.

She said that Tunisia had a long history of women's emancipation and the role of the woman within the family is as a partner to her husband. According to the Personal Status Code, which was promulgated in 1956, polygamy was abolished and judicial divorce was instituted, as was equality between men and women in the use of the right to divorce. Tunisian women have been able to take part in the political process since the very first elections after independence in 1956. Education is free and compulsory for both boys and girls and Tunisian women have the right to use family planning and reproductive health, she added.

The rise of Islam in the 1980s failed to halt women's progress, thanks to the strong political will of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who considered women's rights as an integral part of women's rights. He ordered a multi- discipline committee to look at the weaknesses within the Personal Status Code and make amendments. That led to a number of changes, which led to the scraping of an article that called for a woman to obey her husband and to Tunisian women being able to pass on their nationality to their children, she added.

Tunisia's Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women was based on the Beijing Conference Platform for Action. Among many other achievements, some 99 per cent of girls now go to school, the dropout rate from school of girls in the rural areas, which was previously a problem, has fallen, 50.7 per cent of women now occupy university places and women have been integrated into vocational training.

She said that many Arab and African countries were eager to use the Tunisian model with regard to women’s emancipation and that had led to the signing of conventions between Tunisia and other Arab countries.

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