Hayett Laouani Opens Port Doors to Women

By Delinda C. Hanley

Hayett Laouani entered her career almost by accident. The daughter of farmers who were thrown off their land from 1960 to 1969, when Tunisia briefly turned farms into socialized cooperatives, her family may have had trouble feeding their children, but they let nothing stand in the way of educating them. In its socialist experiments, Tunisia lost 10 years of economic progress, Hayett says, but its education and health sectors did not suffer. Hayett was part of the first generation of girls who learned side-by-side with boys in integrated schools.

After graduation Hayett married early and, despite strong disapproval from her husband’s family, who wanted her to stay home, found an administrative position in a small shipping agency. There she saw men with little education doing work she knew she could do as well, if not better. As a 19-year-old woman, therefore, she plunged into a man’s world where, in many cultures, women still are considered bad luck when it comes to boats.

She worked as a shipping clerk, boarding ships, checking cargo, and moving around docks at all hours, in the midst of men with “X-ray eyes,” she said. She found that older co-workers were as over-protective as her family, but some of the dockworkers were not.

For example, in the early days a huge heavy door barred entry to the port late at night. The watchman would let her pass but categorically refused to open the door for her. So this diminutive woman took great pride in opening and shutting the heavy port door by herself.

In the 1970s, 20 years after Tunisia’s independence, most shipping and stevedoring concerns were owned and managed by French companies, with the required 51 percent Tunisian ownership. Hayett only made a third of the salary of a teacher in her shipping management position but every day was interesting. On the side she started a small carpet factory in a garage, further infuriating her in-laws who wanted her to stay home with her sons.

The resulting bad feelings led to her divorce. Now it was even more important to succeed in business to support her children.

Hayett only hired girls over 20, and gleefully overpaid her workers, giving them raises when the business made good profits and thus raising eyebrows among her competitors. She had little time to sleep during this period of her life, working in two businesses, spending time with her boys and extended family, and scrupulously guarding her personal reputation.

When a Tunisian manager of the shipping company died in 1978, she became a full owner of the small company and set about improving marketing and thereby increasing the stevedoring work. Her company moved a lot of cargo and gave good wages to employees, once again angering competitors and state-owned companies. Doors began to close to her as she applied for the necessary licenses to do her work. Four years passed as she watched less experienced and less educated men easily obtain a license that was always denied to her. She thinks she may also have made enemies as she spoke out against the construction of a brand new port with huge warehouses using an outdated design that didn’t take into account the modern use of containers, which make warehouses unnecessary.

She also encountered serious legal problems that tied her business and heart in knots for two years. She thinks her habit of paying employees higher wages than the norm caused anonymous competitors to call out investigators. However, she ultimately won all her legal battles.

Though she has fought hard for success in her field, Hayett has never been particularly interested in money, putting her earnings back into her business to expand it. “I’d like to be a butterfly and not even own a house,” she explains. Nevertheless she enjoys living on a small hacienda with gardens, fruit trees, chickens, cats, and dogs. She thinks her home may have inadvertently become some kind of animal shelter. Whenever her son takes a pet to the vet, he returns with another animal to join the menagerie.

Hayett loves to cook and her gracious, yet modest, traditional old Tunisian home is the perfect spot for family dinner gatherings. As with most Muslim families, her family responsibilities and relationships now take precedence over everything as she juggles home and business. She spontaneously invited two Washington Report correspondents, their translator and driver to join her for dinner in her home the night of this interview. The meal she conjured up with fresh fruits and vegetables from her garden and the conversation about the modern Tunisian family’s careful hold on its traditional values was a highlight of the trip.

When Hayett sees wealthy people who build hotels or companies with short-term profit in mind instead of long-term goals for their country, she is appalled. She believes everyone should think about what he or she can give to their nation. “Everyone must take responsibility for our country,” she maintains. “We can’t place all the responsibility on the president. Since President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took over the destiny of Tunisia in 1987, some people expect the president to look after everything.”

Hayett thinks it is each citizen’s responsibility to speak out if they disagree and to change things they oppose. If the private sector can do things better than the government, she says, the private sector should be left to do the job. “If I need to move X number of containers per hour, I can figure out how to do it. I don’t need the government to give me a list of equipment I’m required to use. I’m a professional,” Hayett says. “Sometimes I see the doors close to professionals and open to people with money. I spend 18 hours a day fighting this. And I love it.”

Hayett believes a government needs to give its people security at its borders but let its people work freely inside. She looks at Tunisia as a great melting pot. “We don’t make wars,” she explains. “We’re not an aggressive people.”

Hayett was one of the first people to receive a presidential medal of merit for entrepreneurs in 1992. Before that time, she laughs, government officials only gave medals to each other. She has fought hard for her independent life and to succeed in an industry dominated by men. As she gazes out her office window at her company’s containers and the port outside Tunis, she has new dreams for a challenging future. Her plans include starting a trucking company as a joint venture with a Danish company, and continuing to expand her stevedoring business.