Tunisian women fighting for equal inheritance rights
Increasing numbers of women are organizing to pressure the government into legislating equal inheritance rights to replace the current law, which is based on the Quran.
The Tunisian Coalition for Equality in Inheritance, which is comprised of some 70 women's rights groups, mobilized hundreds of protesters for a demonstration on March 10 in front of the parliament to call for a law guaranteeing equal inheritance rights.
Held under the banner “Equality: A Right Not a Privilege,” the march marked a new direction in Tunisian women’s quest for equal treatment by taking their struggle to the streets in the hope of pressuring the president and members of parliament into passing a new law granting them equality in cases of inheritance.
The current law is based on the Personal Status Code announced in 1956 by President Habib Bourguiba. The code was primarily based on the Quran, specifically the Surah an-Nisa (The Women), which states that in the case of surviving brothers and sisters, the male's share should be twice that of the female.
In an address delivered last August during celebrations for Tunisian National Women’s Day, President Beji Caid Essebsi promised to enact a code governing individual rights and gender equality and to review inheritance laws in the Personal Status Code to establish gender equality in that regard.
