Two recent UNESCO studies show the social and economic impact of a practice considered normal throughout Tunisia: that of parents inflicting physical and psychological violence against children.
A new report by a range of agencies has shown that a staggering proportion of Tunisian children suffer violence at the hands of their parents. The Cost of Violence against Children in Tunisia, published in April 2025 by UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Family and the Tunisian Observatory for the Rights of the Child, put the cost of this at $865mn, just less than 2% of the country’s GDP.
The national problem is laid bare in the statistics, with six out of ten Tunisian children suffering physical violence and eight out of ten children suffering psychological violence. Thousands of cases of sexual violence were also recorded. Overall, boys were more likely to be the victims of parental violence than girls.
The estimated financial cost of the damage caused by parental violence against children in Tunisia represents about a third of the country’s total education budget and two-thirds of its health budget. The study considers the number of children affected, and the direct and indirect costs of violence, in both the short- and long-term. These include social protection, legal costs, health, education, and the overall loss of quality of life.
The economic burden of violence against children strengthens the case for prioritising prevention and intervention efforts, the authors argue, yet Tunisia is far from the only country in which parental violence towards their children is a problem. That said, its prevalence in the state is particularly stark, a 2024 UNESCO study showing how 86.2% of Tunisians had been victims of, or had witnessed, violent disciplinary practices.
Six out of ten Tunisian children suffer physical violence, and eight out of ten suffer psychological violence
Damning statistics
Produced in cooperation with the Tunisian Ministry of Women, Family, and Childhood, the report—titled Disciplinary Practices in Tunisia—also found that 83.8% of respondents experienced psychological violence and 81% experienced physical violence. Moreover, almost two-thirds of Tunisians believe that parents have the right to discipline their children violently.
This deep-rooted normalisation of violence in parental attitudes shows that many see it as a legitimate and even necessary part of child-rearing. This mindset is often summed up in the popular Tunisian saying: "We were raised like this and we turned out fine." This downplays or dismisses the harmful effects of such violence, even though psychological research shows that violence against children has both immediate and long-term negative health impacts.
Children who are exposed to violence often suffer a wide range of physical and psychological harm. Some are hospitalised with their injuries, but more often the harmful effects are exposed years later, with an increased risk of chronic physical conditions in adulthood, including arthritis, back problems, hypertension, migraines, chronic respiratory illnesses (such as bronchitis), cancer, stroke, bowel diseases, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
The 2024 study also confirms a strong correlation between child abuse and a heightened risk of mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "There is clear evidence of a causal relationship between physical violence against children and many mental disorders," as well as with risky behaviours including substance abuse, suicide attempts, and vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases.
Local boys in the oasis city of Tozeur, Tunisia.
Swiss-Polish psychologist Alice Miller has examined the lives of several writers who endured childhood violence and then suppressed the effects, which contributed to many illnesses. Among them was French writer Marcel Proust, whose mother was violent towards him. He died at the age of 40 from asthma. Likewise, Irish writer James Joyce grew up with a violent, alcoholic father who Joyce nevertheless portrayed as funny and loving. Joyce underwent 15 eye surgeries, with Miller interpreting that as having been linked to the violence.
In the 1980s, Miller spoke openly about the lasting impact of parental violence. In her book The Body Never Lies, Miller explains that the trauma manifests physically as disease or disability. The body holds an independent sensory memory that cannot be silenced or disguised by the mind, she says. For her views, she faced hostility in the West, even being banned from the media.
French-Swiss thinker Mona Chollet writes in her latest book, Resisting Guilt: On Some Impediments to Existence, that parents who use abuse as a means of disciplining their child—and who, in this process, fail to empathise with them—may teach obedience, but they also teach indifference to pain and suffering, which inevitably causes the child to become disconnected from their emotions.
Although this may help maintain control, it does not foster proper upbringing, but rather the mere "taming" of the child, as French philosopher Pierre Vesperini put it. Violence against children by their parents "leads to the creation of a beautiful robot, not to the formation of a human being," he says.
There is a strong link between child abuse and mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD
UNESCO recommendations
Among the UNESCO recommendations were awareness-raising campaigns against violence toward children, focusing efforts on prevention, expanding the positive parenting programme, adopting multi-sectoral interventions, raising awareness among professionals who work with children, and establishing an inter-ministerial group dedicated to combating violence against children.
It cites a parenting programme in Malaysia that reduced overall abuse by 32%, physical abuse by 71% and psychological abuse by 19%. In the Philippines, a parental education programme—combined with cash transfers—reduced violence against children, including physical and psychological abuse and neglect. "Extending the scope of the Positive Parenting programme in Tunisia, combined with social protection services, could be an effective strategy for reducing violence against children," said the authors.
According to UNESCO, around half the world's children experience some form of violence every year, but the issue is particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa. Although this region represents only 7% of the global adolescent population (ages 10-19), it accounted for more than 70% of adolescent deaths related to violence in 2015.
Violence against children does not help them learn or cope with life. Instead, it leaves them statistically more likely to develop depression, anxiety, diabetes, respiratory infections, or suffer from drug or alcohol abuse.
All that has a cost to the country, so protecting Tunisian children is not only a fundamental human right, but also a profitable investment, but it is unclear whether the government will act on the advice.
