Economy of Tunisia
The Tunisian government adopted a unified investment code in 1993 to attract foreign capital. More than 1,600 export-oriented joint venture firms operate in Tunisia to take advantage of relatively low labor costs and preferential access to nearby European markets. Economic links are closest with European countries, which dominate Tunisia's trade. Tunisia's currency, the dinar, is not traded outside Tunisia. However, partial convertibility exists for bona fide commercial and investment transaction. Certain restrictions still limit operations carried out by Tunisian residents.
Human rights in Tunisia
Fifteen percent of the country identifies as black and many of them face prejudiced on a daily basis. Words like "monkey" , "slave" , and "dirty negro" are used to dehumanized the black population.. Physical assault is also prevalent for the black community. On August 23,2018, several young Tunisians started to throw rocks at a pregnant woman because of race. The situation soon turned into a fight and several people were injured Ghayda Jeanne Thabet, a communication officer of a minority support group, explained to reporters after the attack "This is not the first time that such a racist assault takes place in Tunisia; it happens often," The Tunisian Government denies that racism and exists within the country and yet studies have proven otherwise. A study conducted in April and May of 2018 by Afrobarometer recorded data from 12 hundred respondents. The table below shows some of the results.
Tunisia in the last decade has gone from completely denying the existence of racism within the country to now passing laws criminalizing it. The creation of the law began in 2011 after the Tunisian Revolution. The Revolution was a huge civil rights push that ended up removing the current president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and creating a democratic state with free elections . While the new constitution contained several Articles, it never addressed specifically to the form of racism that much of the black population faced on a daily basis. Article 21 states "All citizens, male and female, have equal rights and duties, and are equal before the law without any discrimination." According to the Tunisian government, this law refers to the equality of all people in value, not the equality of people of base on color and race. Article 23 states "The state protects human dignity and physical integrity, and prohibits mental and physical torture.". This section on protects the dignity of its citizens, even though attacks against a person race may be considered degrading, this law does not protect against it because the Tunisian government denies the existence of racism and therefore this law has no need to address it.