Women in Development and Peace – Haneen Al-Wahsh

The presence of Yemeni women in the economic sector has been growing significantly in recent years. A field survey conducted by us attributes this trend to the ongoing armed conflict in the country, which, as one respondent put it, is its only silver lining. With many families losing their breadwinners and job opportunities dwindling amidst the severe economic downturn, a large segment of society has begun to reconsider the importance of women’s participation alongside men in caring for the family and improving its economic situation.

This new belief is gaining traction among a large number of women who have found themselves entering the workforce. This shift in perception is even being embraced by the older generation, despite their previously held misconceptions and beliefs that viewed women’s work as shameful.

Laila Murad, a Yemeni businesswoman residing in the Gulf, shares her experience. She started her business in Yemen two years before the armed conflict, in 2013. However, she faced strong opposition from her family, which forced her to stop. But when the male members of her family lost their jobs in the first year of the conflict, it allowed her to convince them of the importance of her business activity, which the family gradually accepted.

“Women started working for organizations with good pay and office jobs that respected their abilities and knowledge,” she says. “Others worked in the private sector and achieved great success. It was easy for me to find models that I used to change the family’s beliefs.”

Man’s Support

Yusra Al-Sharabi owns a successful sweets shop in Taiz, providing for her family alongside her husband, a schoolteacher with a meager salary. “My shop has allowed me to create job opportunities for my three sons,” she says. “They work with me in shifts after school and after their father helps them with their studies.”

Yusra’s eldest daughter initially feared she wouldn’t be able to afford a private university education after failing the government university entrance exams. Today, she is top of her class, and Yasra sets aside a portion of the shop’s profits to cover her university fees.

Creating opportunities

 Yemeni businesswomen are striving to create opportunities and resist the economic recession that the country is experiencing amidst an atmosphere clouded by conflict, violence, and male dominance on the scene.

Arwa Saad, whose husband works abroad in Saudi Arabia, faced a different challenge. When the conflict and economic downturn prevented her husband from returning, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I tried opening a small grocery store, but the dominance of men in wholesale markets made it difficult to succeed,” she explains. “I eventually sold the store.”

Arwa convinced her husband to invest in a private school. “He was initially hesitant,” she says, “but I showed him how successful similar ventures had been for my university friends.”

Arwa rented a residential building in the neighborhood where she lives, equipped with a courtyard and architecturally designed to make it suitable for the project. She says, “The conditions of the place and the demand from students enabled me to open another branch of the school in the neighboring district within a year.”

Arwa has become one of the businesswomen in Yemen, and she emphasizes that the credit for this, after her husband’s encouragement, is her ability to invent opportunity from nothing, which she believes is the same reason behind the success achieved by the majority of businesswomen in her city.

Yemeni Businesswomen Leading the World

Yemeni businesswomen have achieved remarkable success, with some reaching international recognition, like Ms. Najat Jumaan, who holds a PhD in Business Administration from the Suez Canal University in the Arab Republic of Egypt. Her financial expertise led to her presidential appointment as Vice Dean of the Financial Institute at the Ministry of Finance, and she was also appointed Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics, and then Executive Director of the Economic Opportunities Fund.

In 2019, Jumaan won a grant from the International Finance Corporation, chosen from among twenty businesswomen selected by the corporation worldwide.

Amat Al-Alim Al-Susa, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, said at the time that the International Corporation’s selection of the Yemeni Najat Jumaan among the top 20 businesswomen in the world is a testament to their leading role in equality and free trade.

According to news and economic websites, Ms. Jumaan is a full-time professor at the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at Sana’a University, and has worked in her field for more than 25 years, holding various positions, such as Professor of Management at the university, Deputy General Manager at Jumaan Company, and Vice Dean of the Financial Institute at the Ministry of Finance.

Boosting the National Economy

Businesswoman Laila Murad says: “The lack of public sector funding in Yemen has been a major obstacle to the emergence of new female entrepreneurs in Yemen, despite their importance in stimulating the stagnant national economy.”

She calls on economic actors in Yemen to provide businesswomen with funding and grants to enhance the success of their economic projects, which will have a positive impact on the national economy, in addition to creating job opportunities for a large segment of young men and women.

The head of the Tax Authority in Sana’a, Abdul-Jabbar Ahmad Muhammad, had previously emphasized the important role played by businesswomen in supporting and revitalizing the national economy.

In a meeting with the General Union of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the National Committee for Women, and the Businesswomen’s Administration, he stressed the keenness to strengthen the partnership between the authority and businesswomen, and on the subject of tax exemptions for small and micro-enterprises, and the authority’s keenness to support businesswomen covered by the exemption law and grant them exemption certificates easily.

However, a large number of businesswomen they met confirmed the intransigence of the public sector in collecting fees such as taxes and others, which have doubled in recent years and have led to the paralysis and disruption of many women’s commercial activities and have also shelved some projects.