Summary:

On Tuesday, 2 July 2024, a vehicle transporting female agricultural workers overturned in Kairouan resulting in multiple severe injuries. The vehicle was reportedly carrying women and their children to their work sites in tomato fields.

This came less than a week after another incident which also occurred in Kairouan and in which a 16-year-old girl died. Ten other women were injured in this incident when the truck carrying them to their work sites overturned.

Outlook: 

Accidents of this kind are raising outrage among Tunisians, especially from residents of the country’s impoverished interior regions where much of the agricultural production occurs. Activists and critics argue that the government’s marginalization and neglect of these regions has led to the erosion of infrastructure, including adequate roads and emergency hospitals.

In April 2019, large protests emerged after the death of female farm workers in an overturned truck, and again in October 2022 as Tunisians living in the interior called for respectable working conditions for these workers. Similar protests could emerge again as the administration struggles to address the challenges faced in the interior regions.

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