In the North African of Tunisia—with a population of about 11.5 million, bordering on Libya to the east and Algeria to the west—sex work has been legal, but regulated by the government at least since the 19th century. The current laws governing legal sex work were put in place when the country was under French colonial rule in the 1940s, and endured even when Tunisia gained independence in 1956.
But with the popular uprising known as the “Jasmine Revolution” in late 2010 and early 2011, while sex work remained legal, at least in government-operated brothels, religious groups and women’s rights activists have forced most of the brothels to close, leaving only a few legal sex workers remaining in the entire country, according to a new report by the BBC chronicling the plight of Tunisia’s last remaining legal sex workers.
Prior to the 2010 uprising, which started as a protest against widespread unemployment and police brutality against the poor, there were an estimated 300 legal sex workers spread among brothels in a dozen cities in the country.
By 2014, that number had been reduced by more than half, to about 120. And today, according to the BBC report, only a dozen remain, in legal brothels in just two cities, the capital city of Tunis, and Sfax.
"Step by step they are firing women, they fire them for the simplest mistake they do. I am expecting that one day the same thing could happen to me," one of those remaining 12, a 25-year old who woul donly identify herself as Amira, told the BBC.
Another, 40-year-old, Nadia, told the BBC that after a violent protest by Salafists—a fundamentalist sect of Sunni Islam—shut down the brothel where she worked in the city of Gafsa, she was injured in the attack and was unable to get her job back once she had recovered, forcing her to take to independent, street prostitution which remains illegal in Tunisia.
“It is not the same as when we were in the protected brothel, with a doctor, a female condom and a madam [who kept an eye on proceedings],” she said. "Now when I get a client I am scared because I don't have anyone who can protect me or stand by my side.”
Nadia told the BBC that since being forced out of the government-run brothel system, she has been brutally assaulted and robbed by clients.
Even for the remaining legal sex workers, the threat of religious condemnation has driven away clients, making it much more difficult to earn a living in the legal sex work business.
While some Tunisian politicians have advocated job retraining programs for former sex workers, the reality has been that employers simply refuse to hire them.
"If I was kicked out of the brothel, I will go to the street, because I will beg for money for my child under the mosque,” Amira told the BBC. “I hope they will have mercy on us."
