Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Josephine

Casselli. Today I'm hearing about a little known piece of Tunisia's history. For many

decades this North African country has had a system of legal brothels, which in the last

ten years has been under attack.

When they came, they came in big numbers, they shouted loudly, we're going to fight you, you are the

non-believers, you are against the law, you're against religion.

That's Professor Abdel Mejid Sahaf. He's a doctor with a long

history of working with women in Tunisia's legal brothels. After 2011 the Islamists felt that to impose their caliphate they had to close these brothels.

In the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring and the Revolution in Tunisia, Islamists were gaining support. They waged a campaign to shut down Tunisia's

legal brothels and in early 2013 they set their sights on Sfax. When they were going to come to Sfax. Fuchs.

When they were going to come to Sfax, I started to raise awareness in the local community.

Sfax is Tunisia's second city and it has this narrow old street which is home to the city's legal brothels.

Around the street there are lots of different trades and these people live thanks to

prostitution. People come there and they buy water something to eat etc. So I explain to them.

If they close the brothels, the whole neighborhood will close.

They understood the danger and they acted.

So did any of the people agree with the Islamists?

...