Tucked away on a street off Mother Teresa Boulevard, underneath a large concrete apartment complex, sits Blina Era, a small floral arrangement shop owned by VjollcaVeliu. Rows of bright flowers in pots line the steep set of blue tiled stairs that lead down to Veliu’s shop.
Even without windows, the shop is brightly lit from overhead fluorescents. Overflowing floral arrangements take up the shelves lining the walls, while buckets containing flowers yet to be arranged cover the floor. Tulips, roses, baby’s breath.
In the corner of the shop sits a small wooden desk. Scattered with bits of flower and ribbon, this is where Veliu brings her creations to life.
Veliu opened the store eight years ago when she was discouraged by the high level of unemployment in Kosovo. She has a master’s degree in Albanian, but could not find work in the field.
“I always loved flowers, and that’s why I decided to work with them,” Veliu said with a smile. “My favorite part of owning my own business is that I don’t have a boss, I am in charge. I also like that I am able to support my family with my business.”
Veliu has two young daughters that benefit from her business, as well as her husband, who works with her in the shop from time to time.
Veliu said that she didn’t have much trouble as a woman trying to start her own business, but that her biggest challenge was finding the money to begin. Through careful saving and planning she was able to open, without the assistance of the government. Veliu grows some of the flowers she sells in her shop, while other are imported from the Netherlands.
“I would suggest that any women should start her own business, or at least try it, if she is financially able to,” said Veliu. “It is good to be in charge of yourself and your work and to be able to support your family. It can be difficult at times, but it is worth it.”
With the help of non-government organizations, women’s business enterprises are on the rise in Kosovo. According to the Kosovo Women’s Network, an estimated 56.9% of working age women are unemployed compared to 40.7% of men, and only 35% of women even participate in the workforce to begin with.
Much of this issue stems from unequal education opportunities for women in Kosovo. According to the Kosovo Women’s Network, 65% of women never complete secondary school here, compared to 41% of men. In this traditional society, women are viewed as caretaker s, taking a more unpaid role in the family. If they do chose to work, many women take lesser paid positions and have jobs as teachers, nurses or other service industry jobs.
The Kosovo Women’s Network’s strategic plan focuses on three parts to help women in the business sector: improve their economic position, ensure the right to inherit property and lastly have more girls complete their higher education.
First, the network aims to help improve the economic position of women in Kosovo by teaching them economic independence and entrepreneurs skills. Working with local NGO’s across the country, the network provides funding for classes to educate women and teach them marketable skills for the workforce.
One such NGO, Gruaja Hyjnore, or Divine Women, has been working toward the economic empowerment of women in the Gjilan municipality since 2005, said founder Qëndresa Hajdari.
Initially the operation was very informal, but since 2013 the organization has been granted a free office space by the municipality as well as nearly 2,500 Euros in grant money from the Kosovo Women’s Fund.
“Gjilan is trying to pay more attention to women’s rights and interests because we know the role of women in society, and the growing economy is important,” said Hajdari. “We, as the municipality, are trying to create more space for women to act and undertake more activities. In the past 12 years we have helped over 500 women at Gruaja Hyjnore.”
Hajdari also said one of the major obstacles facing the women Gruaja Hyjnore has helped is women in Kosovar society being viewed in more traditional family roles.
“Maternity leave is one of the biggest issue women face today,” said Hajdari, “It is illegal to discriminate against women and employers must give new mother six months of paid leave, but many women feel pressure to return earlier or risk losing their jobs. And when they do return to work, women can feel that they are letting their families down by not staying home with their children. We are aiming to change the mindsets of society here.”
One way to make progress is through encouraging women to become entrepreneurs and start businesses, helping them to become economically independent. This proves difficult however, due to the difficulty women can have inheriting money and property, that can be put up as collateral for a loan to start a business. While women do technically have equal inheritance rights as men in Kosovo, very rarely is it enforced and women can face backlash from family and community if they try to pursue it. Only 12% of property in Kosovo is registered to women, up from 8% in 2011 according to the Kosovo Women’s Network.
To combat this, Gruaja Hyjnore holds a yearly workshop to educate women on their property rights and gender equality, as well as encouraging equal access to secondary and higher education. In addition to this, the NGO also hold workshops to teach women practical economic empowerment skills, such as creating their own products, networking with other women in Kosovo, business management techniques, financial grants and job search assistance.
Gruaja Hyjnore has helped more than 500 Kosovar women take steps toward economic independence. Much of their funding comes from the Kosovo Women’s Network and with supplements from individual donors.
“We want to continue to empower women,” said Hajdari. “Even if we don’t always have the resources or support we would like.”
The economic division of the Office of the Prime Minister in Kosovo is beginning to work on economically empowering women, with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. agency that assists in countries with economic problems. In June, the MCC board of directors, led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson approved $49 million in funding for Kosovo.
Gender and social inclusion specialist of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Violeta Rexhepi, said that one of the main challenges they have faced with economically empowering women is the lack of cultural understanding of women in the workforce.
This year, the Millennium Challenge Corporation plans to survey 10,000 women across Kosovo in an attempt to discover why only 20% of them ever even choose to enter the workplace.
Rexhepi said that traditional gender roles play a major factor in holding women back from economic independence.
“There are not many opportunities for employment with finding a balance between taking care of the family and having a job. Kosovo does not have enough child care facilities or places for the elderly to live. When women spend all their time taking care of them, they cannot work,” said Rexhepi.
Many women are frustrated with the lack of jobs in Kosovo as well, leading them to not even attempt to participate in the workforce.
“They have no hope,” said Rexhepi.
“The gender roles are much stricter, especially in rural areas. In Pristina, it may not feel so different from other big cities, but in the country many believe that women should take care of families, while men should be the breadwinners,” continued Rexhepi.
Chief economist of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Alban Zogaj agrees with her.
“People think that the men need to be employed first. With our high unemployment rates (over 27% in 2016) they think that if men are unemployed and at home, women should be too.” said Zogaj. “As well as the lack of jobs overall, there are still cultural, historical and religious stigmas against women in the workplace.”
He is also disappointed with the lack of women participation in the workplace overall.
“This is terrible globally, 80% don’t even look for jobs. It’s a striking statistic, it’s unbelievable. These numbers are in comparison with African countries, they’re in comparison with Saudi Arabia – not with the Balkans or the rest of Europe” said Zogaj.
Zogaj said that equal access to quality education for women is key to growing the number of women in the workforce, and growing the economy of Kosovo overall.
“This country needs three things, education, education and education,” said Zogaj. “Educated people want to push forward and create jobs, and when jobs are available, women will want them. Women can be such a big factor in the economy, it is important that we emphasize them.”
Once the Millennium Challenge Corporation completes its survey of women this summer, they plan to analyze the data in order to create a strategic plan to encourage more women to join the workforce and gain economic independence.
One plan is to create women-lead projects in emerging economic sectors, such as energy. The Millennium Challenge Corporation will provide incentives, such as small grants for women entrepreneurs to come together on things like energy efficiency and production.
“It is very bad that the statistics of our women workforce is similar to some countries that are at war. We need to do everything we can to increase the economic empowerment of women,” said Rexhepi.
(Elise St. Esprit is a reporting intern at KosovaLive this summer in cooperation with Miami University in the United States.)
