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The pandemic is keeping most of the world indoors, but in one country it’s also opening a few. I’m Brian Banmiller on Business.

Women in Iraq are using the pandemic lockdown to establish home-based businesses. They say it’s a way to avoid the discrimination and harassment that comes with the country’s male-dominated, conservative society. Plus, it’s allowing them to bring in much-needed income for their families. One woman says she started making wooden cheese platters designed to look like paintings. After a few online business classes, she is now successfully selling her cheese boards, making a steady income, and has more than two-thousand followers on Instagram. A business partner at a company that supports start-ups says other women have started companies making food deliveries, candy, crocheting, and embroidering. She says women in Iraq have a hard time finding work because their husbands or fathers won’t let them. In other cases, they are discriminated against by men at work, some of who won’t even talk to them. Many newly employed women say they have a hard time keeping up with orders they are getting, but are grateful

About Brian

CBS News Radio national business journalist Brian Banmiller has spent more than 40 years in the news industry, covering business, politics and the economy on television, radio and in print. Currently, his “Banmiller on Business” reports are delivered to an audience of millions nationwide.