Salwa

Salwa is a Tunisian feminist in her twenties. She works in a feminist organization in Tunisia; this is her second work experience in the public space after being active in the General Union of Tunisian Students. During her adolescence, Salwa became aware of the violence women are subjected to in Tunisia and how the state and the laws deal with women, which made her an advocate for women’s issues.

Salwa says that feminist organizations in Tunisia at the moment are not well organized so as to maintain their activities. “The feminist organizations that exist right now don’t share our vision as young feminist activists; unfortunately, we no longer see things the same way. I’m sure that in five years or less even, a new feminist body will form, one that matches reality, because the conflict between the generations within the movement right now can’t go on.”

Salwa is afraid that Tunisia will fall back into dictatorship rule and wonders if the political situation could regress to become similar to that in Egypt. She feels that what she went through could be the experience of a fifty-year-old and not someone in their mid-twenties. “The problem,” says Salwa,  “is that we came into the world at a time when everything is in a terrible place.”

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Salwa is an alias chosen for the interviewee to remain anonymous.