The National Institute of Statistics (INS) carried out a broad national survey towards the end of 2022 to shed light on the issue of violence against women aged 15 to 74 in Tunisia. This survey encompassed 11,610 households across different regions, including the District of Tunis, South East, South West, Center West, Center East, North West, and North East, to ensure representativeness at the regional level.
The main goal is to produce quantitative indicators making it possible to estimate the manifestations of violence and their frequencies as well as the identification of the characteristics of the female victims and the perpetrators of the attacks. Findings from this INS survey show that violence against women is a prevalent issue within Tunisian society. A staggering 84.7% of respondents reported having been subjected to at least one form of violence (physical, sexual, moral, economic, and cyber) since turning 15, and 57.1% experienced violence in the 12 months leading up to the survey.
Moral violence, encompassing psychological and verbal abuse, appeared as the most common form, impacting 49.3% of women in the year before the survey. This was followed by sexual violence (15.6%), economic violence (11.4%), and physical violence (5.3%).
Notably, 14.4% of violent acts noted in the 12 months before the survey occurred in virtual spaces such as social networks and messaging platforms. Moreover, 42.7% of married, divorced, or widowed women reported encountering violence from their current or former husbands.
The survey also showed that certain demographic characteristics were more commonly associated with higher prevalence rates of violence. Especially, during the year preceding the survey, 73.7% of women aged 15 to 24, 80% of students, 70% of women with higher education levels, 63.2% of working women, 67.4% of single women, and 59.7% of urban women (compared to 51% of rural women) reported experiencing violence.