Hundreds march for gender equality in Tunis

Hundreds of women protested in Tunis on Saturday to demand equal inheritance rights as men, which is not the norm across the Arab region.

The demonstrators - mostly women but also some men - carried signs reading "in a civil state I take exactly what you take," a nod to scrapping Islamic inheritance laws that typically give men double the amount.

Compared to other Arab countries, Tunisia grants women more rights. 

In August, Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essbsi established a committee to advance women's rights.

Last year, Muslim women were permitted to marry non-Muslim men for the first time in Tunisia. Legislators also passed a comprehensive violence against women law that included measures such as criminalising sexual haraassment. 

However, men and women are not entitled to equal inheritance in Tunisia, an issue that protesters demanded on Saturday be changed. 

“It is true that Tunisian women have more rights compared to other Arab women but we want to be compared with European women,” Kaouther Boulila, an activist, told Reuters.

“We just want our rights.”

The majority-Muslim North African country is typically praised as the only "success" story of the 2011 Arab uprisings, which saw strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali removed from power in 2011.

But terrorism has plagued Tunisia and economic growth has been sluggish since the revolution.

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