Tunisia

Greater Freedom for Mothers

Valentine Moghadam relates that women's rights have been drastically altered by the abolishment of polygamy and access to free birth control, as well as legal abortions in the first trimester. The average age at marriage has increased to age 25 and the average family size is four people. Just as many girls attend school as boys.

According to Professor Mounira Charrad, the Maliki mother's version of Islamic family law was a kin-based community power in the Maghrib and often gave women no say in their own marriage or divorce. Colonization in Tunisia strengthened institutionalization and weakened kin-based communities, yet strengthened the conjugal unit. This made Tunisia ripe for changing Islamic family law, allowing President Habib Bourguiba the opportune circumstance to sign the Code of Personal Status in 1956, shortly after Tunisia's independence from France. The Code offered women the right to consent to and attend their own marriage; polygamy was abolished and women were allowed to inherit, although only half of the amount of their male relatives.

Saidi Algrehbi, President of the Tunisian's Association of Mothers, has expressed pride to be Tunisian under Ben Ali's Code, whom in 1992 announced amendments to the Code such as the granting of the mother's nationality to the children of a foreign father, the Pensions Fund for divorced women, and the choice of joint property in marriage. In 2008, parliament passed additional rights to mother inmates by approving special living accommodations for pregnant and nursing mothers.

The Women's Maternal Health Conference in Tunisia has demonstrated that skilled midwives are crucial in protecting the life of a new mother and infant. Training local birth attendants has been successful in Tunisia, where 90 percent of mothers are attended by skilled midwives. Author Susan Moskowitz points out that defining maternal mortality as a social injustice and a health disadvantage obligates governments to resolve maternal death through political and health systems. By decreasing maternal mortality and giving women control other their family size, Tunisian mothers have become empowered.