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Feminist icon Tawhida Ben Cheikh now honoured on new banknote

Tunis, Aug 7 (EFE), (Camera: Natalia Román Forte).- Tunisia’s first female doctor Tawhida Ben Cheikh also became the first woman to feature on the country’s banknotes in March.The pioneering feminist was also the first female medical practitioner in north Africa and the first to join the National Council of the Order of Physicians.Her daughter Zeineb Ben Zina recalls how she was also the first to open a family planning center in Tunisia in 1963.FOOTAGE OF TUNIS FACULTY OF MEDICINE, THE MEDINA (OLD TOWN) AND BEN CHEIKH'S EXAMINATION ROOM AND CHARLES NICOLLE HOSPITA.PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF ZINEB BEN ZINA, TAWHIDA BEN CHEIKH'S DAUGTHER: - Young Tawhida - Tawhida with her aristocratic family- When she studied at the faculty of Paris, together with colleagues and work colleagues- Together with her mentor Etienne Burnet, famous researcher and director of the Pasteur Institute of Tunis.- Tawhida greets Habib Bourguiba, the new president after the independence of Tunisia- First National Congress of the Tunisia's Family Planning Association (1971)- Her visit to the interior areas of the country to raise awareness about sexual and reproductive health- Poster of the Tawhida Ben Cheikh Group for Research and Action in Women's Health-Mail stamp with her portrait (2012).SOUNDBITES OF:ZINEB BEN ZINA, TAWHIDA BEN CHEIKH'S DAUGTHER: “When she went to her patients' homes for delivery, many had no water or hygienic conditions. So she would not only attended the delivery alone, without a midwife, she would help bring the child into the world, and then she washed him and brought him water...They often could not afford to pay her, they were very poor people."SAIDA BOUZID, TAWHIDA BEN CHEIKH ASOCCIATION PRESIDENT:“He was in every corner of Tunisia to inform about contraceptives, to see women, to treat them. She did a huge job and, thanks to it, Tunisia is now where it is. (She wanted) women to leave their home, to study, and all this had to start by easing their reproductive burden."SELMA HAJRI, TAWHIDA BEN CHEIK GROUP SPOKESPERSON:“More than 50% did not know any type of contraceptives. Of the young people we surveyed, less than 10% knew about the morning after pill, about 50% believed that abortion was not legal (and) 80% did not know about the existence of family planning centres. In these last 15 or 20 years, there has been a total loss of information”.