Resisting and Redefining State Violence: The gendered politics of transitional justice in Tunisia

Abstract

ABSTRACTFor decades, thousands of Tunisian women suffered from systematic sexual violence at the hands of state agents, with many now seeking justice and public recognition of those crimes following the 2011 Jasmine revolution. While Tunisia’s process of transitional justice created an opportunity to construct new narratives of women's rights, it paradoxically created more barriers to holding the state accountable for its violations, mainly because of the centrality of the state hegemonic narratives of women’s rights in the legal and political process of transitional justice. In this article, I investigate the limitations and gendered paradoxes inherent in the process of transitional justice in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Focusing on the Truth and Dignity Commission established in 2014, I explore how gender-based violence featured into the formal procedural mechanisms of transitional justice, and the degree to which women’s voices were incorporated into the making of the rules and procedures related to providing compensations and rehabilitation to victims of gender-based violence. Furthermore, I analyze how official narratives of gender-based violence committed by the state enforced traditional gendered categories, perpetuating the state's prerogative powers over its citizens and reflecting the requirements of Tunisia's fragile political settlement. Through such an approach, I hope to develop a deeper understanding of the role that nationalist narratives on women’s rights play in the context of transitional justice and suggest viable recommendations for building accountable state institutions that could effectively address gender inequality as an essential goal of democratic governance.