Tunis: The Women and Citizenship and Aswat Nissa associations on Monday called for a multi-sectoral national strategy to combat domestic violence and prevent domestic feminicide.

In a joint statement issued following the latest feminicide on April 6, the two associations pointed to the need to give due importance to requests for protection made by victims, as stipulated in Article 26 of Law No. 58/2017.

According to the statement, the most recent victim was killed by her ex-husband, who also murdered her mother and maternal uncle, yet the victim had alerted the authorities to the threats she had received from him.

“However, her fears were not taken seriously enough,” the statement said.

This crime reveals once again the shortcomings in the enforcement of Law 58/2017, the treatment of women who report violence, and the weakness of the authorities in measuring the danger to victims of domestic violence and taking the necessary measures to protect them, they added.

In this regard, they called on the Ministr
ies of Interior and Justice to open an investigation into the handling of the complaint filed by the victim a few days before her murder.

They also called for the training of specialised police officers and magistrates to be stepped up and for their material resources to be increased.

The associations also called for the publication of the report on feminicide drawn up by the Ministry for the Family, Women, Children and the Elderly, and for the effective activation of the Scientific Council of the National Observatory on Violence against Women, so that its priorities include the fight against feminicide, in collaboration with feminist and human rights civil society organisations.

25 feminicides took place in 2023.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse