At 9am, the middle of Tunisian’s capital city is already crowded. There are several hospitals here at Bab Saadoun and patients come from all around the city for treatment. This is where I met Raja and heard her story.  In her 30s, she looked pale and exhausted. She was looking for the drive way into one particular clinic and as she searched, she didn’t even notice a large sign above her head declaring that it was International Women’s Day today.  

It was Friday March 8 and the large sign, erected by an NGO, boldly declared: “I am a free Tunisian”.

At 9am, the middle of Tunisian’s capital city is already crowded. There are several hospitals here at Bab Saadoun and patients come from all around the city for treatment. This is where I met Raja and heard her story.  In her 30s, she looked pale and exhausted. She was looking for the drive way into one particular clinic and as she searched, she didn’t even notice a large sign above her head declaring that it was International Women’s Day today.  

It was Friday March 8 and the large sign, erected by an NGO, boldly declared: “I am a free Tunisian”.

“Did you say Women’s Day?” Raja laughed when I explained the sign to her. “Well, I was free until I got sick,” she declared bitterly.

And then she began to tell me her life story. “My name is Raja Souli,” she said. “And I’m 31 years old. I grew up in a slum in downtown Tunis. At 16 I dropped out of school and I married a labourer.”

As a young woman, she says that she thought that having a family would fulfil her. And to a certain extent it did. Raja now has three children. But then recently she discovered that one of her daughters had a kidney disease and that she would not survive without a transplant.

When doctors at the children’s hospital told her about her child’s illness, Raja returned to her home in Djebel Jelloud in the south of the capital Tunis, in shock.  “Her illness turned my life upside down,” Raja laments. “But I didn’t hesitate. Then I informed my husband of my decision.”

Raja decided she would donate one of her kidneys to her daughter. Having undergone the necessary tests, the doctors set about preparing both members of the family for the life saving operation. Unfortunately on the way to the children’s hospital one day, Raja had an auto accident and woke up in hospital with head injuries. But even this didn’t stop her from her stated aim of donating her kidney to her daughter.

“Only death could have stopped me,” Raja says.

Raja’s daughter then began to recover. But even as she did, Raja became sicker: her one remaining kidney began to fail and now she has to go to hospital regularly for treatment on a dialysis machine.  And then Raja’s husband left her. “When I got sick, he divorced me,” she says bitterly. Having worked as a cleaner previously, Raja now became too ill to work and in order to feed her children she has started begging.

“I hate begging,” she says. “But I am forced to accept some donations.”

She says that her own family doesn’t care for her and when she does ask for help, they tell her they are too busy.

“My life is worthless and eventually I will die,” she says. “But first I want to make sure my children have somewhere to live so that nobody can throw them out. I also hope they finish their education and that their futures are bright – even if I’m not there.”