On November 10, Bussines Women Mitrovica, amember organization of the Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN), held an information session with 12 representatives of businesses in Mitrovica and representatives of institutions of the municipality. The meeting occurred under the”Creating friendly places” of work ” initiative, a beneficiary of the 15th round of the Kosovo Women’s Fund (KWF).
During the meeting, women entrepreneurs were informed about the models of family friendly policies, as well as the possibilities to apply these models in their companies or businesses.
Valbona Sadiku, who runs a beekeeping business, said that women in job interviews are always asked about family planning, which is discriminatory.
“We, as women entrepreneurs, must stop this discrimination and focus on creating friendly jobs so that these policies continue and women are not deprived of employment opportunities.”
Hatixhe Ibrahimi, who runs an agricultural business, shows that her focus has always been the employment and empowerment of women.
“There are always women on my team and I will always support them. Definitely family friendly jobs should be created in every company and business. “This is in order to have equality in every family”, she added.
Further, Fahri Jashari from the Directorate of Culture, Youth and Sports in the Municipality of Mitrovica said that the recommendations issued from this session will be sent to municipal institutions.
“Here we are together representatives of the public sector and representatives of businesses to discuss and promote finding ways to create family policies that ensure a balance between life and work. Recommendations are very important for us as a municipality in directing our areas of focus”, he said.
Furthermore, women entrepreneurs discussed the difficulties they face as women-ledbusinesses, namely a lack of support from institutions and lack of space to promote products.
Participants highly appreciated this opportunity to share their experiences and ideas regarding job creation.
The “Promoting Employment through Family-Friendly Jobs” Initiative was supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) through KWN’s “More Choices: Gender Responsive Family Policy for the Private Sector in the Western Balkans and Moldova” funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), the operational unit of the Austrian Cooperation Agency.
