Progress Amid Resistance

510 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAF Universities and research centers should initiate more projects investigatingpopulation issues, as well as the condition of women, their rolein economic and social development, and their participation in decisionmaking in all aspects of life.AUTHORLilia Ben Salem earned her PhD from the Université de Paris V (laSorbonne) and is a researcher and professor at the Faculty of Social Sciencesat the University of Tunis. Her work focuses on major social changeswithin Tunisian society. Her publications concern educational sociology,managerial training, and the rural environment, as well as the family andits recent transformations.NOTES1National Statistics Institute, July 1, 2008, evaluation.2For more details, see Ilhem Marzouki, Le mouvement des femmes en Tunisie au XXèmesiècle [The Women’s Movement in Tunisia in the 20th Century] (Tunis: Cérès production,1993).3Article 20 of the constitution guarantees the right to vote for all citizens holdingTunisian nationality for at least five years.4World Bank, “GenderStats—Labor Force,” 2007, http://go.worldbank.org/4PIIORQMS0. According to the 2004 census in Tunisia, women represent 26.6 percent of theactive working population.5Sana Ben Achour, “Femme et droit en Islam” [Women and Law Under Islam], Universitéde tous les savoirs, October 2007.6Mohamed Charfi, Introduction à l’Étude du Droit [Introduction to Law Studies](Tunis: Centre d’Études et de Recherches et de Publications de l’Université de Droit,d’Économie et de Gestion [Center of Study, Research, and Publication at the Universityof Law, Economy, and Management], 1990).7Constitution de la République Tunisienne [Constitution of the Tunisian Republic], Article72(1) (Tunis: Publications de l’Imprimerie Officielle de la République Tunisienne[Tunisian Official Press Publications], 2004).8Articles 13 and 14 of the nationality code.9A decree from June 19, 1914, regulating the attribution of Tunisian nationality hadmade it nearly an exclusive right of the father (only children of a Tunisian mother withan unknown father could take the mother’s nationality). The code of nationality, promulgatedin 1957, had extended this prerogative to a child born in Tunisia to a Tunisianmother and a foreign father, but not to children born abroad to a non-Tunisian father.Alya Cherif Chamari, La Femme et la Loi en Tunisie [Women and the Law in Tunisia](Rabat: Editions le Fennec, 1991).