Interview with Sanaa Benachour

2008-12-18

Elected this month as president of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, Sanaa Benachour talked about her vision to achieve gender equality and confront religious extremism.

Interviewed by Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis—18/12/08

[Jamel Arfaoui] Tunisia’s Sanaa Benachour believes democracy deters religious extremism.

The Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) defined three main goals during its last conference in October, said new president Sanaa Benachour: addressing the deteriorating economic condition of women in Tunisia, promoting equality and confronting religious extremism.

The 53-year-old daughter of renowned religious scholar Sheikh Al Fadhel Benachour spoke with Magharebia about her association's objectives and how the "spread of public freedoms, including that of opinion and expression", is the best way to counter fundamentalism.

Magharebia: Now that you have been elected president, what urgent issues are you planning to address?

Sanaa Benachour: First, I’d like to mention, if I may, the way in which our association works. We have collegiate committees that deal with issues, and a congress and assemblies that set priorities. Our work is therefore done on a collective basis. The president’s role is coordination, not political leadership.

Our priorities for the next term are threefold: focusing more on economic insecurity and on attacks on the economic and social rights of women as a causal factor behind violence perpetrated against them. Through our drop-in and advice centre for female victims of violence, we have been able to touch on this aspect of the problem which affects women in particular. These are issues of housing, rest homes, unemployment, working conditions, subcontracting, low income and minimum wages, inequalities in terms of inheritance rights, and so on.

Our second priority has to do with the political and cultural environment, which is characterised by cultural regression, a rise in religious conservatism, and authoritarian policies that threaten women’s rights. That’s why we’re going to devote ourselves to creating channels for communication, exchange and the sharing of culture, especially through training. We want to promote the universal values of sexual equality, human rights, and fundamental freedoms that the women’s movement and our association have championed.

The third strand of our activity will be to build our association’s capacity to lobby for equality, non-discrimination, rights and citizenship. Despite considerable strides on the legal front, the political, economic, social and cultural position of Tunisians is still highly unstable with numerous areas of inequality and discrimination in terms of rights. Our association plans to address these issues.

Magharebia: Where do you stand on equality in terms of inheritance rights?

BenachourEquality in terms of inheritance rights and the law of succession is still an area that needs to be addressed. In 2006, we made a demand for equality in inheritance rights on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Personal Status Code. To this end, we drafted a document setting out our arguments, consisting of fifteen points, which we tried in vain to get the authorities to adopt. There were three main strands to it: sociological arguments, legal arguments and arguments relating to our cultural history. We demanded an end to male and religious privileges that still dominate the inheritance system and set it at variance with the principle of universal equality before the law.

We’re still some way off achieving our aims, but we are happy that the women of the Maghreb are now united on this issue. Although it has not been expressed in precisely the same terms by the various components of the independent Maghreb women’s movement, they are united in making this demand. This issue will be the focus of a Maghreb seminar which will be held in Tunis in January. One of the items on the agenda will be our action strategy.

Magharebia: How can fundamentalism be confronted?

Benachour: In my opinion the only response to this is democracy and respect for the rule of law, public freedoms, including the freedoms of speech and thought, and human rights and sexual equality guarantees. A policy of exploiting democratic mechanisms without bringing about democracy, and of repressing and cracking down on freedoms is no response. What this does is to have the opposite effect: people’s frustrations actually encourage backwardness.

How can you tackle fundamentalism when there are no dissenting or even slightly critical voices that can be heard? How do you tackle fundamentalism when all you see in newspaper columns is a one-sided stream of self-satisfaction and denial of reality? How can you tackle fundamentalism when civil society is still struggling to get its right to an independent existence recognised? I could go on and on.

Magharebia:Talk about the prize you were awarded in France.

Benachour: On December 10th, the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, our association [received] the Prix des Droits de l’Homme 2008 from the French National Advisory Committee. This prize is a reward for one of the aspects of our work tackling violence; namely our efforts to set up a centre to listen to and advise female victims of violence and violations of their economic and social rights, not just provide them with psychological and legal support. This prize will no doubt help build the centre’s capacity to address women’s needs and expectations adequately.