The Supervisor of the Women's Unit in the Mayor's Office here, Dr. Layla Al-Hilali, said allowing women-owned establishments to diversify their activities would provide more employment opportunities for women, especially as “we now have women inspectors”. She pointed out that there are only 1,660 establishments in the city owned and operated by women as opposed to 12,060 which are owned by women and operated by men. Al-Hilali explained that the women's sections in the municipal administration are authorized to process the paperwork of a businesswoman, if the woman is following up the matter herself. Apart from this, teams of women inspectors visit shops with female employees and process permits for hairdressing and beauty salons. “This spares women from having to hire a paperwork expeditor (Moaqqib) or an agent and enables them to supervise their business personally within a suitable environment,” she said. Al-Hilali said the women's unit, in the short period of time since it has been established, has tackled violations in 72 percent of women's hairdressing shops in the city. “We detected and destroyed many duplicate creams, hair dyes and herbs. One of the salons was found to have 3,000 bottles of expired hair dyes some of which had expired nine years ago. Large quantities of stimulants were also found at some women's centers and were destroyed.” “We've conducted about 9,000 inspections since the women's unit was established and we have not faced any problems as most owners were cooperative and were simply unaware of the regulations,” Al-Hilali explained. She said 200 women's centers and salons have been closed down out of which 30 were closed permanently because of the serious nature of the violations and the harm they caused to customers.
