Pushed to the Outskirts: Tunisia Must Actively Protect the Digital Rights of sub-Saharan African migrants in Rural Areas, Cultivate a Culture of Digital Literacy, and Combat Online Hate Speech to Fulfill its Responsibilities Under CERD

On October 19, 2025, the International Justice Clinic (IJC) and SMEX (a non-profit organization that advocates for and advances human rights in digital spaces across West Asia and North Africa) submitted a NGO report to the United Nation Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) during its periodic review of Tunisia. The purpose of this submission is to inform the committee of issues relating to Tunisia’s non-compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) arising after the adoption of the List of Issues Prior to Reporting (LOIPR), and to address the claims that Tunisia’s government made in their state response to the LOIPR. This submission would not have been possible without our collaboration with SMEX, who provided their digital rights expertise and insights in Tunisia to develop this report.   

Now, CERD will evaluate Tunisia’s compliance with ICERD using information from the State Report, national human rights institutions (NHRIs), UN agencies, the press, other intergovernmental organizations, professional groups and academic institutions, as well as NGO reports. CERD will examine these reports, including our submission, to inform its “constructive dialogue” with government representatives during the upcoming 116th Session. From this dialogue CERD will issue “Concluding Observations” that address whether Tunisia was in compliance with its treaty obligations and apply the treaty to specific situations raised during the discussion. Ultimately, the opinions and conclusions CERD reaches informs CERD’s “General Recommendation” that are issued to help all states as authoritative guides for how states should implement and interpret relevant treaties. 

In our submission, we address the insufficiency of Tunisia’s state report response to the issues raised in the LOIPR and the ways that Tunisia’s response has failed to meet its obligations under Article 2(1)(c) and Article 5 of the ICERD. 

Tunisia’s response that the application of Organic Act No. 2018-50 satisfies the concerns raised in Paragraphs 7, 14, and 22 of the LOIPR is insufficient. In particular, this Act neglects any substantive evaluations on whether relocation of sub-Saharan migrants to rural areas creates indirect discriminatory effects and isolation from public goods such as internet access, educational infrastructure, and opportunities to digital literacy. Further Tunisia fails to provide evidence of targeted efforts to combat racist attitudes or online hate speech that had previously incited violence against sub-Saharan migrants. 

In addition, the submission focuses on the following actions actively taken by Tunisia that violate Tunisia’s obligations under ICERD but are not addressed in their state response. (1) Tunisia’s forcible relocation of migrants to rural areas with inadequate internet is oftentimes physically violent, cuts off migrants from digital resources, and blocks access to basic rights. (2) The lack of policy to provide digital resources to sub-Saharan African migrants is exasperated by the concentration of migrants across areas where there is weak to little internet infrastructure which then perpetuates migrant’s inability to gain access to the means needed to participate in public life and economic advancement. (3) Lastly the stark digital literacy gaps amongst rural sub-Saharan African Migrants hinders the ability of many sub-Saharan migrants to meaningfully exercise their rights in the modern digital sphere.

Our report concludes with the following suggestions: (1) to address the issue of forceful relocation, Tunisia should halt and review all policies that forcibly relocate migrants to rural and remote areas with further measures that ensure access to essential goods; (2) To address the issue of internet access, Tunisia should implement programs that surveys the disparity of internet access across different economic and social groups and create programs that removes barriers that prevent equal access to the internet; and (3) to address the insufficient digital literacy, the report suggests multiple strategies, like updating curriculum to better equip youth to the use of National Commission to Combat Racial Discrimination or to monitor digital literacy rates. 

Clinic students Zainab Rizvi, Luke Antoun, Lizbeth Mendoza-Leon, and Joseph Cheung supported this report’s research, drafting, and submission under the guidance of International Human Rights Lawyer and Faculty Hinako Sugiyama.