In front of the Ivory Coast Embassy in Tunis, 27-year-old Dorothée waits with her 2.5-year-old daughter on her back. Like more than a hundred Ivorians, she came to register for voluntary repatriation. “My landlord gave me a week to leave the house. Friends of mine had to leave even more hastily. I don’t know where to go, it makes me sick what’s going on.” confides the young mother in an illegal situation, pushed at the start.
Thursday 23 February, two days after Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed’s speech on the “hordes of illegal immigrants”source, according to him, “of violence, crimes and unacceptable acts”Dorothée was fired from her job as a housekeeper.
The next day, the Ivorian diplomatic mission launched a vast census operation of its nationals “wishing to leave Tunisia permanently”. A step all the more urgent as the Tunisian authorities have increased the pressure on sub-Saharans, despite the demonstration against racism which brought together a thousand people in Tunis on Saturday, and protests from abroad.
Tunisian and sub-Saharan associations have recorded numerous cases of migrants expelled from their homes in recent weeks. Evictions precipitated by the strict application of a law of 2004 which obliges, under penalty of sanction, the owners to apply for a residence permit and to report to the police station that they are hosting a foreigner.
net hardening
This law, like the Labor Code, was until now very little respected in Tunisia. “It has been a problem for a long time since the residence permit is very difficult to obtain in Tunisia in general”, recalls Alaa Talbi, director of the NGO The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights. Several Ivorians who wait in front of their embassy confirm: they have lived for three or four years in their accommodation without ever being worried. “I have the impression that the population is against us, so there is no point in staying,” testifies Ricoster, a 26-year-old Ivorian.
On the side of the authorities, the hardening is clear, claimed. Tunisians who do not respect the law on the accommodation of a foreigner are liable to fifteen days in prison and a fine, the spokesperson for the Sfax court said in a statement on Thursday. Severe sanctions are also planned for the employer who hires a foreigner without a work contract, added the next day, the spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard, Houssem Jebali, in a televised statement.
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