Tunisia has been a hub of migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa attempting to cross the Mediterranean [Getty]
Remarks by a Tunisian lawmaker about rape and sub-Saharan African women migrants have triggered outrage, with rights groups condemning the comments as racist and sexist.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
On Monday, lawmaker Tarak Mahdi said during a parliament session that recent reports of the rape of a migrant woman from sub-Saharan Africa were false.
“That an African woman is raped is unheard of,” he said. “Tunisian women are beautiful enough… We lack nothing in Tunisia.”
The Tunisian League for Human Rights denounced the “shocking” remarks and condemned a “backward mindset that justifies violence and trivialises the crime of rape”.
The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights also criticised Mahdi’s statements, calling them a “blatant violation of human dignity” and a dangerous justification of sexual violence against women.
Facing mounting backlash, Mahdi issued a statement saying his comments had been taken out of context.
“I never intended to encourage or justify rape, or to undermine human dignity, especially that of Tunisian women,” he wrote on Facebook.
“If there has been any harm to the dignity of Tunisians, or to human dignity regardless of nationality, then I of course apologise.”
Mahdi’s initial comments came during a Q&A parliament session with the interior minister.
He had also said sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were posing a “threat to social peace”, adding: “These people must leave at any cost.”
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants”, many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
Saied’s speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($300 million) deal with Tunis.
