In a case that has shocked Tunisia, two sisters from one family in the province of Sidi Bouzid were sexually assaulted by their 70-year-old neighbor. The girls, aged eight and four, have been nicknamed Haifa and Yafa by the Tunisian press.

In a case that has shocked Tunisia, two sisters from one family in the province of Sidi Bouzid were sexually assaulted by their 70-year-old neighbor. The girls, aged eight and four, have been nicknamed Haifa and Yafa by the Tunisian press.

In the south, locals have called for the perpetrator to be sentenced to death. The father of the children has said that the neighbor exploited a relationship of trust with the family, who are from Reqab city in central Tunisia, to commit the crime. The young girls were threatened with death if they told anybody what had happened.

The girls’ father told the courts that his first daughter was so frightened by the threats made by the older neighbor that she didn’t say anything. The crime was only discovered after her younger sister was also attacked.

“When my youngest daughter was attacked, she returned home in a terrible state and when she told me what happened, I did not believe her,” the father said. “So I took her to the doctor who confirmed my worst fears.”

Since the crimes, the elder daughter has refused to return to school and the family has been in shock.

Calling for death penalty

Activists in Reqab wanting to show solidarity with the family have started a campaign calling for the death penalty. The campaign also calls for more awareness and action against sexual assaults on children – these are thought to occur more frequently out in the countryside.

Moez Sharif, Head of the Tunisian Society for Defending Childhood, agrees that these kinds of crimes occur more frequently in Tunisian back country.

Official figures on child abuse “do not reflect reality,” Sharif says. “There are many more incidents of sexual abuse than this.”

Recent studies have shown that there are an increasing number of child sexual abuse cases being reported. In 2014, there had been 289 cases of sexual exploitation against children confirmed, says Mehyar Hammadi, General Delegate of Child Protection. That was compared to only 50 cases reported in 2010.

Sharif believes that the numbers will continue to rise because perpetrators often get away with the crime, due mainly to the fact that legal proceedings against them are never completed. Often there is a lack of evidence to convict, Sharif notes.

For the time being the father of the two young girls in the most recent case can only wait – in the hope that justice will be served sooner or later even if his daughters’ lives will never be the same again.