Afaf Saeedani, who has a BA in banking, has spent every day wandering the streets carrying a heavy file, knocking on the doors of governmental institutions in Kairouan trying to find a job.

Saeedani is now in her forties, her hair is beginning to gray and her days are filled with worries. She has long dreamed of getting married and becoming a mother but those dreams seem far away. She is still dependent on her poor family who has invested in her with the hopes that she would find a stable job.

Afaf Saeedani, who has a BA in banking, has spent every day wandering the streets carrying a heavy file, knocking on the doors of governmental institutions in Kairouan trying to find a job.

Saeedani is now in her forties, her hair is beginning to gray and her days are filled with worries. She has long dreamed of getting married and becoming a mother but those dreams seem far away. She is still dependent on her poor family who has invested in her with the hopes that she would find a stable job.

Saeedani, who spent the prime of her youth unemployed, said she became a hopeless woman because of her old age and the impact of the heavy unemployment years.

Alongside other unemployed colleagues, Saeedani has participated in many sit-ins since 2013, in front of the same institutions where she has tried to find employment. She has protested during the change of three governments and three governors.

Saeedani has also sent applications to all ministries and participated in many job competitions held by the government – but with no success. Meanwhile, she has exceeded the legal age limit for taking part in such competitions.

She eventually accused Ola District’s official in Kairouan of negligence and irresponsibility, but the latter’s response was harsh as he accused her of obstructing the government’s work.

Then, in on if the sit-ins in which she participated, Saeedani was arrested two days before she was released under pressure from lawyers and other protesters.

After she was released, the Ola district governor filed a lawsuit against her and she was fined $50. However, Saeedani appealed and, thus, a new battle in her life has begun.

She said she is only one of thousands of unemployed people whom the state did them injustice by not employing them, accusing some officials of favoring their relatives and family members when offering jobs.

“It pains me to see people younger than me who have just graduated from university and offered jobs through suspicious ways, whereas my opportunities have decreased and my hopes are wasted,” she said, complaining about an employment sector rife with nepotism and corruption.

“There are high rates of poverty, unemployment and marginalization in my district because of an absence of projects, development and investment despite the coming of six consecutive governments since the fall of the previous regime and the promises from officials made in each election,” she said.

Hassan Talibi, an unemployed young man in his forties, from another area in Kairouan, is also waiting for a job opportunity to rescue him from his dire financial situation.

Talibi participated with Saeedani in sit-ins and was also arrested and accused of obstructing the work of a government institution, based on a complaint by the governor of Bu Hajla in Kairouan.

He earned a degree in Arabic in 2010 and opted for joining an association that does advocacy for unemployed people, yet that has not translated into a job opportunity yet.  

Talibi recently married an unemployed woman which aggravated his financial situation and forced him to find a job opportunity in the private sector, for a low wage, to meet their daily needs.

Talibi has also accused the state of ignoring the unemployed, stressing that some of them joined extremist groups due to the hopelessness and injustice they experienced in their underprivileged and marginalized areas.

“The young people’s situation is terrible as they do not have social or health insurance or daily worker IDs despite the fact that some of them have graduated from university after many years of education. All of this led them to be dissatisfied and discontent,” he explained.     

In response, the governor of Kairouan said authorities are doing their best to reduce unemployment and promised to provide Kairouan’s young people with good job opportunities in the upcoming job contests.

He denied the existence of any nepotism in appointing people in the public administrations, stressing that he is not responsible for the mistakes of his predecessors. As for the prosecution, he said it is a pure judicial matter and he has nothing to do with it.