FEMALE FINANCIAL FUTURES: How e-commerce is expanding Iraqi women’s horizons

By Hanan Salem in Baghdad
After the COVID-19 pandemic caused her to lose her job at a travel and tourism company, Haneen al-Ramahi, a 28-year-old from Iraq’s southern Muthanna province, was forced to look for another way of supporting herself and her family.
As it is for many Iraqi women, who are dealing with limited job opportunities and a high youth unemployment rate, e-commerce turned out to be an answer for al-Ramahi.
In 2023, the unemployment rate in Iraq was around 16% and youth unemployment rates have been over 30% for several years now.
She began purchasing products she saw were popular with local women, in bulk. Then al-Ramahi began selling them via Facebook and Instagram, a business that has resulted in steady income for the young woman.
She is not alone. Many young Iraqi women have transformed their lives by getting into e-commerce and their work has also changed Iraq’s commercial landscape.
“In the first year of the pandemic, everything was challenging,” al-Ramahi says. “But I was determined to make it work. It allowed me to maintain my independence and to avoid becoming a burden on my father.”
In her previous job, al-Ramahi earned around IQD250,000 Iraqi dinars (US$190) a month. Today she earns more than this and is even considering hiring staff.
There’s also a cultural aspect to the rise of female entrepreneurship in the e-commerce sector. If they live in conservative communities they may face additional challenges in getting a job and there’s often even less access to highly prized public sector jobs. Online sales, which can be managed from inside their own homes, offer a way to make money without transgressing conservative cultural norms.
“In some rural areas, women struggle to find work due to societal limitations,” confirms sociologist Anhar Youssef. “E-commerce allows them to run successful businesses without having to leave home and gives them access to products that they might not otherwise be able to purchase due to social constraints.”
Ghufran Adnan, a 25-year-old from Baghdad, has been purchasing cosmetics and personal care items online for years. She prefers buying from platforms run by women and says she appreciates the personalized service and attention to detail that often comes with buying from these businesses.
“I love receiving my orders neatly packaged,” Adnan explains. “Often it’s like a gift. It’s the personal touch that makes a difference.”
Economic experts, like Bassem Antoine, believes that this kind of e-commerce, as well as others, is playing a significant role in boosting Iraq’s economy. It increases the value of private sector activities in an economy dominated by the government and public sector jobs and also increases female participation in the workforce. “These businesses contribute to the national economy by creating new jobs for women and ensuring that they can maintain their financial independence,” Antoine explains.
Afan al-Sultani, 25, from Hilla city in Babel province also started an online business during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. She used free, online courses to learn how to make soap and now has over 50 products in her assortment and almost 50,000 followers on social media.
There are still significant challenges though. The female entrepreneurs say there is a lack of government support for small businesses and for freelancers.
Al-Sultani thinks that if there were more, this sector could grow even more and more jobs could be created. “The government could provide training for women to develop new skills as well as offer us loans to help us grow our businesses,” al-Sultani suggests.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani recently said that it is clear that Iraqi government cannot employ all of the country’s graduates. Iraq previously worked more like a rentier state, where oil incomes went toward employing locals and funding the government. But as the population has grown and oil prices have fluctuated, this has become unsustainable. Al-Sudani and others have all said that the country’s private sector needs to expand so that more jobs are created.
“The support we need isn’t just financial but also in terms of policy,” al-Sultani explains further. “If we could get help with building factories and reducing imports, we could create thousands of jobs for young women,” she enthuses.
For many Iraqi women engaged in it, e-commerce also represents more than a job. It is also a means of self-expression and a way to pursue their own passions and interests and potentially even a path to financial freedom.
The sector is so lucrative that some Iraqi women who already have jobs have also embraced the trend. Fatima Amer, a 27-year-old from Baghdad, turned her love for fashion into an online business selling second-hand clothing from Europe. She really enjoys sourcing unique pieces of clothing and cleaning and selling them, and at the same time she keeps her full-time government job.
“I love what I do and it allows me to be independent,” Amer explains. “It’s not just about making money, it’s about doing something I’m passionate about.”
This report was completed under the supervision of NIRIJ, the Network of Iraqi Reporters for Investigative Journalism.