A Tunisian man has been accused of burning his 13-year-old daughter on 28 May in the Tunis suburb of Cite Ibn Khaldoun because she was walking home from school with a male class mate. The young girl named Aya succumbed to the fourth-degree burn wounds on 7 June after a nine-days-fight in hospital.
The incident has been framed an "honor killing" - a crime committed when a family member is considered to have brought shame on the family - and Aya's father has been arrested. Unlike in many other countries across the region these crimes are "almost unheard of" in Tunisia, reports Tunisia Live.
A Facebook page, "I Too Was Abused" has been created in solidarity with Aya’s cause and against gender based violence and the Twitter hashtag #moi_aussi_j_ai_été_violentée (“I too was abused”) encourages women to raise their voice against all forms of violence.
