Mona Ghalayini is one of the few women in the Gaza Strip who has managed to join the world of business and the economy, for many years a preserve of Palestinian men. Gaza is home to a conservative society that does not give women much space, but some women, like Ghalayini, have nonetheless managed to establish themselves in business despite societal prohibitions and economic hardship in Gaza.
Ghalayini, 42, began her career as a restaurant employee in Gaza following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. When the restaurant closed, she decided to start her own business. After obtaining funding from a lending institution, she leased a hotel in Gaza with two partners. She also ran a restaurant by herself for a number of years, and it became quite successful. She later opened the first fast-food restaurant in Gaza City, which also met with great success. This encouraged Ghalayini to continue her climb up the ladder and to eventually open one of the most upscale restaurants in Gaza. Slightly more than a year ago, she established a hotel on the coast with a $2 million investment, a move Ghalayini described as a "risk" in light of the current economic situation in Gaza.
The Gaza economy has been sagging as a result of the Israeli blockade imposed against Gaza in 2007, with repeated closures of commercial crossings, restrictions on the import of goods and movement of people resulting in astronomical unemployment rates, which in 2011 reached a high of 45%, especially among youths.
There remains a significant lack of female participation in the labor force despite a remarkable rise in the level of female education in Palestinian society, where the female literacy rate now equals that of males. Nadia Abu Nahla, director of the Women's Affairs Technical Committee, a civil society organization operating in Gaza and the West Bank, told Al-Monitor that no more than 14.3% of Gazan women are employed, compared with 66% of men. This roughly means that one out of every 10 women participates in the labor force versus seven out of 10 men.
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