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Proactive versus Reactive Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights

A Comparative Case Study Analysis of Morocco and Tunisia

Bibliographic Data

ID21714553
AuthorsGinger Feather (0000-0001-8032-0810, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume29
Issue2-2020
Pages76-89
Publication date2020-11-30
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFEMINA POLITICA – Zeitschrift für feministische Politikwissenschaft (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1433-6359 • E-ISSN: 2196-1646
PublisherVerlag Barbara Budrich GmbH (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3224/feminapolitica.v29i2.07
OpenAlexW3108498892
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

Morocco and Tunisia, two progressive Muslim-majority countries, took vastly different approaches to women’s sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR). Sharing a French colonial past and Maliki Islamic tradition, Tunisia is an emerging democracy with a long history of top-down women’s rights advances and state-promoted SRHR. Tunisian women have benefitted from SRH education, access to contraception, emergency contraception, and state-funded first trimester abortion. Tunisia targets vulnerable populations, including unmarried, minor, rural, and poor women, with special clinics and subsidies. Finally, Tunisia holds men responsible for children they father outside of wedlock. In contrast, Morocco’s bottom-up feminist-driven approach to SRHR, including access to contraception, emergency contraception, and abortion, is circumscribed and exclusionary, targeting married couples. The criminalization of extramarital sexual relations and most abortions force single women with unwanted pregnancies to resort to unsafe abortion. Moroccan men who father children outside of marriage enjoy legal impunity from paternal responsibilities. Nevertheless, the recent rise of Islamic parties in both countries poses a potential threat to Tunisia’s proactive laws and policies governing SRHR, while adding another obstacle to adequate SRHR provision in Morocco

Abortion · Criminalization · Economic growth · Emergency contraception · Environmental health · Family planning · Geography · Human rights · Islam · Political science · Population · Pregnancy · Reproductive health · Reproductive rights · Sexual and reproductive health and rights · Sociology · Gender Studies · Global Maternal and Child Health · Law · Medicine · Reproductive Health and Contraception

  • The Conflation of Single Mothers and Prostitutes in Morocco

    Ginger Feather•Journal of Middle East Women s…•2021

  • Islamist governance and the protection of “select” women’s rights in Morocco

    Sammy Badran, Ginger Feather•International Feminist Journal of…•2025

  • States and Women's Rights

    Mounira Charrad•States and Women's Rights•2001

  • Between Feminism and Islam

    Zakia Salime•Between feminism and Islam•2011

  • Contraception and Fertility in Morocco and Tunisia

    Jean Lecomte, Alain Marcoux•Studies in Family Planning•1976

Citations per year0.4
Citation span2021 - 2025 (5)
Highly citedNo
Open DOIOpen Access
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