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 Mogadishu, (insidesomalia.org) - Somali women have became the sole breadwinners of many Somali families after recent fighting between Somali government supported by the Ethiopian troops against insurgents broke out in Mogadishu.
Women do business in nervous city where confrontations are common and violence became part of people's daily life.
Asha Ahmed Abdulahi is an energetic businesswoman who sells a whole sale and retailing cloth store in Bakara Market, the main market in Somalia.
"Doing this business women support their families because fathers have nothing to do, they are vagabonds sitting around the corners of the streets" said Asha whose husband was a former diplomat working for the former Somali ministry of foreign Affairs.
Somali women have taken the role of their husbands and they are the bread winners and also the responsibility of caring and maintaining children since the fighting broke out in Mogadishu last year and before when the civil war broke out in Somalia 1991.
More than half of the traders doing business in Somalia are women; mainly women do business in Mogadishu.
Certain circumstance have forced Somali women come out into the streets doing business such as selling milk, charcoal, meat , clothes , the stimulant khat , cosmetics and the jewelry market which is nearly exclusive to women traders.
"Some of the women are divorcees or widows and support orphans or children abandoned by their fathers" said Hamdi Ali who is a widow whose husband was killed by armed robbers in Mogadishu seven years ago.
Many business women in Somalia had to overcome many obstacles and taboos against working women.
"We are targeted by armed men who took away whatever we have including money, khat and even our necklaces" said Fadumo Abdi.
Some of the women business start their job as hawkers as or sometimes as cloth vendors who sell cloth as loan given after a long delay paid each day on certain amount of money frequently 2000 Somali Shilling , agreed by both the customer and vendor known as "Ha I warerin"- Do not confuse me.
Somali women braved the prevailing insecurity and intense violence in the country particularly the restive Mogadishu where many people die after they are caught between the cross fire of insurgents and Somali government and Ethiopian troops.
The attitude towards women by the Somali tradition confining them in the house is absolutely changing and barriers were overcome while Somali business women engage in import business, buying merchandise from countries like the Gulf States, China and Singapore.
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