In Tunisia, “twice punished”: when illness leads to marital abandonment

In Tunisia, nearly 12% of women with cancer will face divorce in 2024according to recent data from the National Union of Tunisian Women (UNFT).
This figure, appeared publicly at the end of October 2025was confirmed by Radhia Jerbipresident of the UNFT, who denounces a “macho mentality” reducing women to their bodies and ignoring their human dignity.

In a statement broadcast this weekend by the TAP agency, Radhia Jerbi denounced the persistence of a “macho mentality” which reduces women to their physical appearance and denies their dignity.
She warned of the increase in divorces for harm filed by husbands against their wives suffering from cancer, speaking of a society where female illness remains perceived as a guilty weakness.

“These women suffer a double punishment: that of illness and that of marital abandonment,” she lamented.

Cancer is not a legal reason for separation

On a legal level, Jerbi recalls that divorce for damage linked to a serious illness remains subject to the judge’s discretion.
But according to a reversal by the Court of Cassation, if the wife was unaware of her illness before the marriage, cancer cannot be considered a reason for divorce.
“The husband is required to assist and support his sick wife, in accordance with the marital duties provided for by article 23 of the Personal Status Code,” she specifies.
In other words, cancer cannot be equated with a fault, neither legal nor moral.

The testimonies collected by the UNFT illustrate this drift.
During a round table entitled “The repercussions of cancer on marital relations”, Arbia Lahmar, social specialist at the Union’s listening center, recounted the journey of several women faced with flight or rejection from their husbands:
refusal of mastectomy, departure from the marital home, pressure to sign an amicable divorce, even accusations of marital incapacity.

Many patients, shaken by hair loss or the removal of a breast, end up accepting the breakup under pressure, wrongly convinced that they have failed.

Call for solidarity and reform

Faced with this observation, Radhia Jerbi pleads for strengthened legal supervision and national awareness on the duty of marital solidarity.
She calls on magistrates, doctors and associations to work together to protect sick women against the abuse of divorce.

“Cancer can strike any human being. It must never be used as an excuse to destroy a family,”
insisted the president of the UNFT.

A national awareness campaign is in preparation, aiming to remind people that love and responsibility do not stop at the threshold of illness.

A universal phenomenon, but women are increasingly alone

This reality is not limited to Tunisia.
Around the world, women with cancer are more likely to experience marital abandonment than men.
Tunisian associations, like studies carried out in Europe and the United States, show that husbands leave their sick wives four times more often than the reverse.
Research published in the journal Cancer revealed that 21% of women diagnosed were left by their partner, compared to only 3% of men.
In Tunisia, testimonies collected by the UNFT and Salah Azaïz Institute listening centers confirm this trend: sick women are abandoned where men are supported.

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