Women had almost no presence in Islamic parties since their emergence in the 1960s.  Since the Arab Spring revolutions, however, women have taken on a noticeable presence in political parties and legislative councils, like the National Constituent Assembly (NCA).

The presence of women in the Islamic Ennahda Movement within the NCA or Ennahda’s own legislative structures has been the result of the gender equality principle adopted during the NCA elections in October 23, 2011 rather than of a history of struggle.

Women had almost no presence in Islamic parties since their emergence in the 1960s.  Since the Arab Spring revolutions, however, women have taken on a noticeable presence in political parties and legislative councils, like the National Constituent Assembly (NCA).

The presence of women in the Islamic Ennahda Movement within the NCA or Ennahda’s own legislative structures has been the result of the gender equality principle adopted during the NCA elections in October 23, 2011 rather than of a history of struggle.

This principle has been firmly advocated by progressive secular organizations and female figures  like Maya Jribi, Secretary General of the Republican Party; Buchra Belhaj Hmida, a member of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women; and leftist Radhia Nasraoui. All of these women outspokenly defended women’s rights under Ben Ali, when most of Ennahda’s women, now taking hold of the legislative authority, including NCA Vice Chairperson Meherzia Labidi, failed to approach  women’s issues since they were living abroad.

Nominal representation or personal beliefs?

Regardless of the significant presence of Ennahda’s women within the NCA or Ennahda’s Shura Council, they are hardly effective at decision making, especially with regards to defining the rights and gains of women in the draft constitution, as if they were against their own rights. For example, they were criticized for being passive in dealing with Article 28 of the draft constitution, stipulating that women are merely complementary to men. This article was severely opposed by civil society components, political parties, human rights activists and politicians who deemed the phrase “complementary” as degrading to women and a legal loophole against their rights stated in the 1965 Law of Personal Statue.

Taking into consideration that women in Islamic parties have lived in Europe where they have been introduced to women from the most well-established democracies worldwide, observers believe that their passive positions cannot be articulating their personal beliefs, but express their obedience to the Ennahda leadership’s supreme decisions taken under a comprehensive framework aiming at changing the Tunisian social pattern built on progressive thoughts well-established by the late President Habib Bourguiba. 

Moreover, while a great number of Tunisian women protested on March 9 with slogans defending women’s rights and calling for more improvement of their statute through constitutionalizing their rights and abolishing all reservations on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a basic entrance to equality, a prerequisite for achieving democracy, Ennahda’s women chose to support its leader, Rashid Ghannouchi, under slogans such as “CEDAW! If you commit the vice, then hide it” defining Tunisian women as Muslims rather than Western or Oriental as in the speeches of human rights activists like Ferida Labidi and businesswomen like Souad Abdurrrahim.

Leaders of Ennahda portray CEDAW as if it intended to legislate sexual deviation, moral deterioration, homosexual marriage and destroying Muslim households.

The women standing against women phenomenon climaxed when a group of women “celebrated” the International Woman’s Day on March 8 by attending a program basically marked by its mechanic rejection of CEDAW, and also when female members of the NCA for Ennahda refused to withdraw confidence from the Minster of Women Affairs, who was negligent in dealing with the rape incident of a three-year-old girl at a kindergarten in Tunis.

Once again, silence prevailed among Ennahda’s women when Habib Ellouze, an Ennahda sheikh, advised a fatwa allowing female circumcision and exclusion from all Shura Councils.

The performance of Ennahda’s women within NCA or Ennahda’s structure has made it clear that they have perplexedly dealt with some universal rights whether consciously or guided by the dominating male component. Engaged in discussion, those women have either justified their passive positions by hiding behind religion or cultural peculiarity to avoid the consequences of such universal rights, or remained silent and voted according to dictations, thus becoming mere cards in the hands of those in power.