African Women Rights Advocates Org: Sierra Leone’s Remoe on the need for business support for women entrepreneurs

This week Reem Abdellatif founding member of African Women Rights Advocates (AWRA) features Vickie Remoe multimedia producer, entrepreneur, and presenter from Sierra Leone in a series about African women breaking barriers. 

AWRA is a movement for everyone that cares and believes in human rights, openness, and partnerships to ensure African women and girls everywhere live their best lives without limitations.

Reem Abdellatif is an Egyptian-American journalist, speaker, and women’s rights advocate. She’s the Founder & CEO of Redefined Communications, a digital boutique agency founded in The Hague, Netherlands. Abdellatif is part of the first generation of women in her family to escape Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and is a survivor of child sexual abuse. She strives to normalize the conversation about sexual abuse, rape, and bodily autonomy in the Middle East and Africa

Excerpt from Interview 

“I didn’t ask myself whether the market needed TV media content. Led by my desire to tell stories about post-war Sierra Leonean life.” Vickie Remoe

As a first time founder, she found Remoe says there were no business support systems for young women entrepreneurs which made running her business very isolating. She said that she was learning and growing professionally but her business was stagnant.

Remoe also shared that she faced sexual harassment when she went out to seek business relationships. 

”It took years for me to understand that when men accepted business meetings it was to proposition me for transactional sex not to do business with me, ” said Remoe.

”These men were predatory using their positions of power to coerce women into sexual relationships in a post-conflict country where resources and opportunities were few and far in between.”

For more on this interview head over to Breaking Barriers: Women Entrepreneurs Add Value to Local Economies in Africa