Women comprise almost half of the country’s population. Yet, women involved in trading are mostly in small and medium enterprises or other cottage industries and most women were found operating informal businesses for self-employment.
In order to understand the state of women traders in the country, Bhutan media and communications institute organized a day-long awareness generation workshop on the gender dimension of trade facilitation in Bhutan, in Phuentshogling yesterday.
Women entrepreneurs were introduced to understanding the business environment with reference to available policies, facilities, support services, business infrastructures, among others. The participants also shared their challenges- from not getting market for their products to difficulty in getting financial assistance among others.
“Whatever I don’t know I am able to know from participants here. Similarly, I am able to share my experiences with them. By attending such a meeting, we are able to make good public relations too. For us women, such events are useful. We gain the confidence to face society. We get the feeling that we can equally compete with men if we do,” said Dechen Mo, a participant.
“Until now we women were not aware of so many things. Here we could share each other’s knowledge and experiences. So we could know ourselves better. We also could know the problems faced by women in general,” added Rinchen Doma, another Participant.
Participants also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of this digital era.
Meanwhile, Bhutan media and communications institute is going to disseminate the project report to the relevant stakeholders. The findings will also be tabled for discourse at a regional level where Bhutan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal will participate.
Sonam Penjor
