This week’s Tuesday’s salon brought us together in the municipality of Prizren discussing the topic: “Barriers to equal participation of women in the labor market”. Part of the panel to discuss about this topic, were: Mybexhel Zhuri, Officer for Gender Equality in the Municipality of Prizren and Esen Kaymakci, Founder and Executive Director of Eris Agency.
The discussion began by emphasizing the negative employment opportunity ratio in terms of gender. Mybexhel Zhuri showed that there is only one woman out of ten employees, disobeying the law on Gender Equality. This difference is more present to women that are located in the rural area, being aware that the given opportunities and the infrastructure for education are not at the right level. Based on this situation, Zhuri offers the stimulating support at the institutional level to create a business. But, what is worth noting is the approach of women who are not supportive at all to each other, so women themselves bear a part of the responsibility. Zhuri also informed the attendees that the Vocational Training Center operates in the municipality, from which many women have benefited in the trainings held, such as: tailoring, hairdressing, training in the field of IT, etc. The aim and objective of the center is to provide training for women with low education, with disabilities and those from rural areas.
Meanwhile, Esen Kaymakci thinks that we should start to ignore the traditions and, in addition to education, the women should learn about some specific craft which can keep them busy and thereby feel useful for themselves and society. However, for women who are now present in the labor market with their businesses, he emphasizes that an important point for a business is the presentation of the activity on online platforms. Kaymakci, together with the company he runs, because of the lack of presence of some of the online businesses, took the initiative to create free logo design for women who lead registered businesses in Prizren and Suharekë.
At the end of the discussion, we understood that women’s support for each other is essential for the development of women’s well-being and then the businesses they run. This can be achieved if each of them shares their own experiences, challenges and successes.
This salon was organized with the support of the Norwegian Embassy in Pristina