Shirani, a single mother of two children provides for her family by engaging in a small apparel business. Having escaped an abusive marriage and a months-long legal battle to get a divorce and legal custody of the children, she was hoping for a better future together with the children when the pandemic hit the Sri Lankan economy hard.
“Since childhood, I was interested in dress-making and I am quite good at it. When I decided to escape from my 7-year abusive marriage, I wanted to use my dress-making skills to support my family. So I started to design dresses for functions, especially for weddings. The business was thriving, when we heard about the pandemic,” she said.
Amid the fear of the virus spreading in the country, the Government imposed a military-backed lockdown from time to time. Weddings and other functions had to be postponed indefinitely. This hit Shirani’s business hard.
“I did not receive orders for more than six months. Also, those who had paid advances for dresses could not complete the payments owing to the pandemic and lockdowns. I faced a difficult time during the pandemic, because my sole income came from the business,” she said.
Small and medium-sized enterprises make up a large part of Sri Lanka’s economy, with over 1 million SMEs accounting for approximately 75 per cent of all businesses. These are found in all sectors of the economy and are estimated to contribute about 45 per cent of total employment in Sri Lanka. Women’s ownership of formal small and medium-sized enterprises is low, at around 25 per cent of all SMEs, and most women businessowners struggle to transition away from informal micro-scale businesses, in part due to limited access to finance and lower business capacity of women entrepreneurs. When the pandemic hit the country, these women entrepreneurs who were already struggling to develop their business models fell out of the frying pan into the fire.
Many women entrepreneurs were burdened with the lack of childcare facilities during the pandemic. Many working women found it extremely difficult to manage both childcare and working from home when lockdowns were imposed.
Kaushi, who owns a handmade jewellery and accessory business, said she used to carry out the business activities after enrolling her child to preschool.
“But when the lockdown was imposed, the preschools and day-care centres were closed. Even after travel restrictions were relaxed, day-care centres, preschools, and schools remained closed for more than one and a half years due to virus fears. I found it extremely difficult to manage the business while taking care of my kid 24/7 in the home,” she said.
Another issue which the WSMEs had to face was the shutting down of postal and courier services. Women who carried out online business were forced to shut down operations, as they were unable to sell their products through postal and courier services.
Also, women entrepreneurs making handicraft items will not be able to sell their products, as people tend to buy only essential items in the pandemic period. Another factor is the shortage or the delay in getting raw materials from suppliers, which might increase the costs of some goods.
Saroja, who is a war widow, worked as a maid in households before the pandemic. When the lockdowns were imposed, she had to remain at home without an income, because she could not go to work, as the people were reluctant to obtain her services due to pandemic fears.
“I have to look after my children. But when I could not find any household to work at, my income was completely cut off. I did not have much savings too, because my salary is not that high, and I have school-going children. There were times when I went hungry and only fed the children,” she said.
Many female entrepreneurs said they did not receive any financial support during the pandemic. They could not even obtain any loans at that time and they were forced to close down their shops during lockdowns.
Broken value chain
Speaking to Ceylon Today, Director of Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR), Kala Peiris, said female entrepreneurs suffered a lot due to a broken value chain.
“They could not find raw materials, some materials were expired, and they could not find markets to sell products. Due to that situation, female entrepreneurs were hit hard during the pandemic. There was an incident where a woman was forced to become a sex worker due to this situation, as she was unable to find any income during the pandemic,” Dr. Peiris said.
Situation in the region
Due to limited economic activity and lockdowns in most countries in the region, the MSMEs are finding it hard to survive. A survey on 30,000 businesses across 50 countries by Facebook, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank indicates that 18% of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Asia Pacific region had to close their operations between January and May 2020, compared to the global average of 26%.
However, businesses in South Asian countries had to experience a larger shock and 46% of the SMEs closed their operations during the above mentioned period. Women-led SMEs have been affected disproportionately, as their operations are smaller and they have very little savings. For instance, in East Asia and the Pacific region, 22% of businesses owned by women had to close down, as opposed to 16% of male-owned businesses.
A study conducted by the Asia Foundation noted that common challenges among the four countries include job loss, followed by a drop in income level, business contraction, financial losses and vulnerabilities, and loss in business for women-led MSMEs in the South Asia region.
Many respondents who participated in the study revealed that they were not aware of government stimulus packages, and further that these packages were not targeted to support those operating in the informal sector. The country reports have identified a set of policy recommendations to enhance government responses for safeguarding and promoting women’s participation in the informal economy and services sector.
Closing the Gender Gap in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has recorded an alarming drop in its commitment to secure gender equality according to the country ranking done by the Global Gender Gap Report 2021, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa said.
Premadasa, quoting the report, pointed out that when the Global Gender Gap Report was initiated in 2006, Sri Lanka was ranked at the 13th position, however, by 2021, it has dropped 89 ranks and ended up at the 102nd position.
Premadasa added, “At the time of these rankings in 2006, Singapore was at 65th position, France was 70th, Ethiopia was at 100th position, but by 2020, Singapore had moved up to 54th place. Ethiopia has also made progress, ranking at 82nd position. France has also made progress. While all this happens, we are down eighty-nine notches and are at 102nd rank out of 153 countries.”
The Opposition Leader criticised the Government for not having a Cabinet Minister portfolio on Women and Child Affairs.
Premadasa further said, “What are these rankings based on? Economic participation, educational participation, educational success, health and survival, political empowerment in particular. We see that women's participation in school education, tertiary and vocational training is declining. We need to launch schemes to encourage women to participate in technical training programmes and skills development. We need to challenge the stereotypes about gender in the school curriculum and incorporate the concepts of gender equality. We need to create learning opportunities for foreign languages and IT with the necessary funding for females to secure jobs in the local and global job market.”
“There is a need to develop a system for acquiring technical skills for self-employed women. They should be able to learn about development and knowledge of market relations from their own home. Although our economy was ahead of other South Asian countries in terms of economic indicators, women's participation was very low. Women in our country do not get high-quality jobs also. Their salary is very low, but women go through more harassment at work than men.” Premadasa added.
Premadasa proposed that a permanent ‘Commission on Women’ should be appointed. “I would like to take this opportunity to suggest to this House that it is appropriate to set up a separate Commission on Women and to empower the Commission to safeguard the political, economic, socio-cultural, and religious rights of women through that Commission.”
Need of introducing a national policy
The Sri Lankan Parliament has a Select Committee on Gender Equality. The primary role of the Committee is to investigate women’s grievances and all forms of discrimination based on gender. We also examine and review laws that can be used to enhance gender equality, encourage relevant ministries and authorities to formulate plans to further gender equality and to allocate financial resources especially for women entrepreneurs and women-headed households. We want to encourage greater women’s representation in decision-making bodies at the national and provincial levels as well as in government, civil society, and the private sector.
However, the role of the PSC is limited to making recommendations to Parliament. Throughout history, there were many committees on how to ensure gender equality. Unfortunately, their recommendations have not been implemented. The Government has not yet recognised the enormous economic potential of women who create innovative products and services that ripple through the economy. More women entrepreneurs could have a huge impact on GDP, but they are not getting any policy-level support from the Administration.
Also, it should be noted that the Government has not created a Cabinet ministerial portfolio for Women’s Affairs. Not appointing a Cabinet Minister for the subject means these issues rarely get discussed at Cabinet meetings. Women make up over 50 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population. If their issues are not discussed at Cabinet meetings, it seems that the Government has completely forgotten how important it is to provide solutions for unique issues faced by females in the country.
“Even before the pandemic, Sri Lankan women entrepreneurs faced many hurdles due to lack of a national policy framework which recognises their contribution to the economy and the society,” representative of Social Scientists’ Association (SSA), Harshani Wasana Fernando said.
Unlike male entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs spend most of their income for the well-being of their families. Although many expect breadwinner role from male entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs have several roles to play despite earning money in the current patriarchal society. She is supposed to look after the children and manage household activities, regardless of how her business is faring. So, it is obvious that female entrepreneurs face more unique challenges than male entrepreneurs and that is why a national policy is much-needed to assist and encourage them, she pointed out.
Fernando highlighted about the difficulty in getting financial support for businesses. Although many promotions are carried out by banks and financial institutions,glorifying about them providing loans for female entrepreneurs, the reality is very different. It is really difficult to meet the requirements to obtain a loan from Sri Lankan banks and financial institutions.
“During the pandemic, the situation got much worse. Since they could not continue businesses, repaying debt instalments was extremely difficult. They did not get any relief from the Government and the banks in this connection. Like I said before, when a woman gets a loan, a majority of benefits are received by her family. But when it comes to repaying the loan, she has to do it alone. If there is a solid national policy, this situation could have been eased,” she added.
Lacking a national policy regarding female-headed SMEs is like erasing women’s contribution to the economy and society.
