JEDDAH: Saudi women who make and sell homemade products are now able to legitimize their work. The Jeddah municipality will issue a special license for any woman who wants to operate a business from her home, according to a municipal official.
“Women who sell homemade cooking and handicrafts or intend to do any other business from their homes can obtain the license to make her work legal and flourishing,” said Mahmoud Kinsarah, head of the municipality’s Licensing and Commercial Monitoring Department. He was speaking at a press conference held yesterday to announce the launch of the 20th Environmental Health Forum, which will be held in Abruq Al-Righama next Saturday.
Kinsarah said the issue of home business licenses for women has been under study since last year.
He said the move became easier after the constitution of the municipality’s first team of women field inspectors who could inspect without problems homes that are off limits to strange men. “We have come up with three simple conditions to make it easy for women to apply for the license,” said Kinsarah.
The applicant should be a Saudi citizen, the business should operate on the first floor to give easy access to inspectors and, in the case of cooking, the unit should have a door to make it accessible from outside, he said.
In Jeddah alone there are countless informal operations run by women from their homes.
“Some women sell food cooked at homes to hotels, weddings and other social events. Now they have a chance to expand their work,” said Kinsarah.
