For Kurdish Iraq’s women entrepreneurs, persistence pays off
Smiling proudly, Zilan Serwud welcomed hungry customers swarming her newly opened food truck in Kurdish Iraq. But launching the venture required more than just permits and loans: Serwud needed family approval. Lingering societal prejudice, family pressures and an underdeveloped private sector have constrained women from breaking into the Iraqi workforce, including in Kurdistan.
That didn’t
Serwud.
She launched Zee Burger in the regional capital Irbil last month, offering no-fuss fare of burgers,
stop
22-year-old
SUCCESSFUL VENTURE
fries and onion rings served at small wooden tables.
The journey to get there was nowhere near as simple.
The first step to any femalerun business, said Serwud, was convincing relatives the venture would not be looked down on by the conservative society.
“I heard some people say: ‘She has a father and brother, why should she run the restaurant?’” Serwud told AFP.
“But if you have an idea or want to develop yourself, you should not listen to hearsay.”
Her family gave its approval, and she received funding from the German development agency (GIZ) to purchase mobile kitchen equipment. Serwud’s father helped pick out the kitchenware and her brother Bayad even flips burgers part-time in the yellow-and-purple food truck.
“I am super happy now that I have my own business. I feel I’ve obtained my freedom and am showing everyone this is what I am capable of,” said Serwud.
In Iraq, only 15 percent of working-age women are in the labor force, one of the lowest rates in the world, according to a 2018 demographic survey by the regional government.
Among employed women in Kurdistan, up to 75 percent work in the public sector, making female entrepreneurs an especially rare breed.
The biggest obstacle is defamation by conservative elements of Iraqi society who see economically autonomous women as too liberal or even promiscuous.