Tunisia bans sex work, endangering sex workers

STATE-LICENSED prostitution in Tunisia dates back at least as far as the Ottoman conquest nearly half a millennium ago—and has persisted to the present day. In 2011 at least 300 sex workers were operating legally under the government’s auspices. Almost every big city had a licensed brothel, regulated by the interior ministry’s bureau of morals. Prostitutes could be registered as fonctionnaires—civil servants. The system, however, is being phased out—much to the detriment of the prostitutes.

The first setback was the overthrow of the authoritarian but largely secular government in 2011, since it empowered Islamists with puritanical attitudes. Most brothels were forced to close. Only two well-known ones are thought to have survived the Islamist purge: one in the city of Sfax, the other in Sidi Abdallah Guech, the red-light district of Tunis, the capital.