Tunisia’s civil coalition for individual and civil liberties on Saturday demanded authorities take serious measures for adopting major reforms in the area of gender equality and individual freedoms recently proposed by the Individual Freedoms and Equality Committee (COLIBE).
On June 8, the committee proposed the abolition of the criminalization of homosexuality, the equality of women and men in inheritance and many other measures.
Tunisian MPs announced this week drafting of a new bill to further promote gender equality in the country's legal system.
COLIBE, set up in the summer of 2017 by President Beji Caid Essebsi, was entrusted with proposing the modernization of Tunisian laws to conform to the constitution.
The civil coalition, composed of 30 non-governmental organizations, including the Tunisian League for Human Rights, the Association of Democratic Women and Lawyers without Borders, called on Essebsi to to realize COLIBE-set aspiration in the fight for full and effective equality among citizens.
Last week, COLIBE handed over to the president a 200-page report, including draft-laws ready for referral to parliament.
On the other hand, the national civil alliance has supported measures to ensure “full and effective equality between women and men, the mandate of children, citizenship rights, full and effective equality of all children, including those born out of wedlock.”
Existing Tunisian inheritance laws are derived from the teachings of Islam, which is officially considered the state’s religion. In some cases, these laws provide that women inherit half of what men inherit.
COLIBE had proposed the principle of equality between brothers and sisters, between the son and the daughter, between the mother and the father, and between the spouses with the possibility of exception.
It also suggested "the possibilities of choosing between equality and preference with respect to equality in inheritance,” should the adoption of equality prove difficult.
