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When her husband was killed by jihadists in 1995, Daikhi had no
choice but to enter the growing pool of female wage-earners in a
country where, outside the largest cities, women were once
expected to stay at home.
"I had to struggle and impose myself. I had no choice. Six
children to feed, educate, and take care of," Karima Daikhi told
Reuters as she sold fish soup and "bourek", a local specialty of
fish wrapped in crispy pastry, at her stall on the quayside.
Daikhi is not alone, in a country where 200,000 people were
killed in a civil war in the 1990s, leaving countless war
widows.
The proportion of women in work was 13.6 percent in 2015, up
from 10.2 percent a decade earlier, with around 2 million in
work compared with 9 million men.
"The men here are also my suppliers, so you definitely must be
present in the harbor, where there are no women," the 52-year
old said.
Daikhi closes her restaurant during the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan and sells her wares from the stall she started with in
Bouharoun, a village 50 km (30 miles) west of the capital
Algiers that is a tourist spot in summer, with small restaurants
selling grilled sardines, squid, shrimps and bourek.
She makes a living, even if tourism remains underdeveloped in a
country still reliant on oil and gas for more than 95 percent of
its foreign earnings.
(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Robin
Pomeroy)
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