THE CHALLENGES FACED BY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN JAFFNA DISTRICT OF SRI LANKA

Abstract

This research intends to investigate the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in the in the Jaffna District of Sri Lanka. Today, women entrepreneurs’ participation is a key factor in the economy. However, in Northern part of Sri Lanka entrepreneurial development were suppressed due to the civil war and especially the women entrepreneurs face numerous challenges and problems in continuing their enterprises in a successful manner. This study has the objectives to investigate the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and the remedies for them in Jaffna District of Sri Lanka. 20 active members from the Karaveddy Divisional Secretariat division in Jaffna district were enrolled into this research based on the purposive sampling method. The paper adopts a qualitative research methodology by incorporating the interpretive analysis capitalizing on in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs to explore their interpretations of problems and challenges they faced in particularly in this district.The findings highlight that financial problem is the major challenge faced by most of the women entrepreneurs and lack of infrastructure, marketing problems, lack of government support and dual role of women entrepreneurs and gender inequality are the other challenges faced by them. Except the economic crisis, most of the challenges are similar to the predecessors’ research findings. It is recommended that the government should encourage the women entrepreneurs to involve in the small scale businesses with the availability of raw materials in their area and manufacture the goods for the need of the present situation in order to succeed in their businesses and survive in this economic crisis