In Samawa, southern Iraq, women salt gatherers are battling for their livelihoods after a private investor seized control of the region’s only salt mine – and with it, the future of the community’s traditional trade. This investigative report examines how women have been forcibly and violently displaced from their work.

Roughly 30 kilometres southwest of Samawa city lies the Samawa Salt Mine, a lifeline for generations of women. For decades, these women have laboured in harsh salt pits, confronting social norms, the hardships of making a living, and the greed of investors. 

Today, their way of life is under threat. 

Umm Noura, 33, first joined her mother in the salt fields as a child. Now a mother herself, with an ill husband and an inadequate welfare income, she returns to the salt pits each morning with four other women, determined to sustain her family.  

These four women help each other through all the hardships. “My daughters help me during the packing stage,” said Umm Noura. 

Together, they gather salt by hand and pack it into bags for sale, a painstaking process yielding modest earnings. Every 100 bags earn around 50,000 Iraqi dinars, roughly 33 US dollars. A single bag of salt is sold for only 500 Iraqi dinars, less than half a US dollar. 

But access to salt fields has been shrinking. The investor, locals say, buried the wells that once sustained dozens of families and installed pumps near his factory to control groundwater levels, making it harder for natural salt to form.  

“There are salt sites far from any of his projects, yet he doesn’t allow anyone to work there,” she said. Only the pits that Umm Noura works in remain, even though their areas are not large. 

These pits are unlike deep water wells; salt forms in them more slowly due to the limited water quantities. A pit is a hole filled with groundwater or rainwater, where salt accumulates over time. 

The women pointed out that the water is deliberately syphoned away, an act done strictly to assert dominance over what little salt remains, leaving them with not just fewer resources to harvest but also threatening a way of life that has endured for generations.  

The inheritance of salt 

Khawla, 43, a resident of the salt mine area, reflected, “I’ve been doing this job for 25 years; I don’t know any other work.” She relies on pits that fill with water during winter, where salt crystallises and becomes ready for harvesting by summer. Using small carts, known as karouba, she gathers enough salt to fill a large truck, lori. 

A full truck of salt sells for 600,000 to 700,000 Iraqi dinars which is roughly 400 US dollars. Yet the labour is gruelling: collecting a truckload can take a week or longer, often requiring five or six women working side by side with remarkable patience and coordination. “Sometimes we sell full truckloads, sometimes we pack the salt in bags and sell it that way, and sometimes the factory hires us to load salt for daily wages,” she said. 

The women have an informal system to divide the work areas, with each woman assigned her own spot. Often, the spots a woman chooses to work in are the same ones her mother used to work in before her. “It’s the inheritance of salt,” Khawla said with a laugh. 

While disputes over territory arise from time to time, the women quickly negotiate and return to their rhythm. “We can load a cart in just five minutes,” they said. 

Salt remains vital to the local economy. It’s indispensable in making turshi (pickled vegetables), for mixing into animal feed with bran and barley, and even in orchards, where it helps guard against soil pests during planting. With a smile, Khawla reminisced, “You reminded me of the good old salt days. The work used to be full of energy, joy, and good company, and it brought in money, too.” 

Grandma Bunya 

Grandma Bunya, 66, has gathered salt since childhood, a tradition deeply rooted in her family. The salt land once flourished with natural salt, thanks to many small wells that either tapped into groundwater or collected rainwater during winter. Over time, the water would evaporate, leaving behind salt that could be harvested from the nukrah (pit) during the summer. Women carefully collected the salt from the edges of the pits, packing it into sacks. Afterwards, the salt was left to dry and recrystallise for two weeks before final gathering.  

At that time, the government took over the area and began digging ten salt pits using excavators, each measuring two to three metres in size. “When I’d go down to gather the salt, it would already be semi-dissolved, and the salt we collected was clean and white like alum,” Grandma Bunya said, describing the exceptional quality of the harvest. 

Salt was transported in carts pulled by horses to collection points, where a government employee would supervise the work and provide salt collectors with sacks for packing. The women were paid five dinars at the time, around 17 US dollars, for every hundred sacks, filling 200 to 300 sacks daily. This was their sole source of income. 

Government supervisors issued payments biweekly, based on the amount packed. Many, like Grandma Bunya, worked under formal contracts and carried official work IDs recognising them as government-employed salt collectors. The collected salt was later sold to merchants in Baghdad, the north, and other provinces. 

In those years, salt gathering was a communal effort, not limited to women. Entire families—men, women, and children—worked side by side. Up to 400 women could be seen labouring together during peak seasons. A typical team included four women assigned to load one cart. They stayed at work until sunset, sharing lunch and tea along the way. “We never faced any difficulties in our work. On the contrary, we felt comfort and enthusiasm. We truly loved the job, and it never caused any health or skin problems. The salt mine was like medicine,” Bunya said. 

She continued working like this until the late 1980s. Change came with the construction of a government-run salt factory. The transition upended the traditional rhythms of salt gathering. Women were no longer regular workers but were occasionally called for irregular shifts to fill sacks for daily wages. Salt was now collected from large, water-filled ponds using karak (small shovels), and loaded into karoubat (carts), either privately owned or managed by factory employees. 

Workers protest 

The residents of the salt mine area, many from impoverished backgrounds, saw their livelihoods abruptly cut off when the salt factory was handed over to a private investor. Khawla described the upheaval: “He dug a large water canal to block access to the salt fields and started sending police patrols with officers to prevent us from reaching the collection sites.”  

Repeatedly, police officers confronted the women, handing out official notices accusing them of stealing state property. Khawla recounted how they defended their work: “We told them, “This isn’t theft; this is our long-standing work.” But the police escalated their tactics, threatening the women at gunpoint. “Whoever doesn’t leave, we’ll kill her right here or throw her in jail; this is a direct order from the ministry,” they warned. 

Khawla added that the older women among them attempted to reason with the officers, trying to explain their situation. But to no avail. In response, the women organised protests, blocking the road and chanting: “This is our livelihood! We gathered the salt with great effort, and they opened the water on it and ruined it. The investor fought us because he doesn’t want anyone buying salt from anyone but him.” 

More than 25 women joined the demonstration. Tension quickly flared: verbal clashes erupted with the police. When the men of the community saw the women being threatened and insulted, they rallied in support. The standoff escalated further. Military armoured vehicles were brought in, and in a moment of collective rage, one vehicle was set on fire. 

According to Khawla, the confrontation took a heavy toll. She described how her husband’s sister was arrested after protesting officers’ deliberate flooding of the salt she had spent days harvesting. When her eldest son stepped in to defend her, he was arrested in her place and sentenced to six months in prison. 

Khawla recalled how they tried everything, resorting to connections and paying 3.5 million Iraqi dinars, around 2,500 US dollars, to get him out of jail. After this incident, the family made the painful decision to abandon salt gathering entirely. 

Wider protest 

In 2015, the salt factory was transferred to private investors, a move that both local residents and factory workers described as deeply corrupt. Workers described the decision as senseless, pointing out that the salt company was not only profitable but also operating at high efficiency. “The ministry sent a committee to evaluate the factory and claimed in its report that the facility was deteriorated,” they said, “even though it had been equipped with new machinery just a year earlier by the ministry itself.” 

That same year, the factory’s director reported that production had reached 200,000 tonnes, generating approximately six billion Iraqi dinars in revenue. 

Faleh Al-Ziyadi, then the governor of Al-Muthanna, criticised the handover, stating that facilities under the Ministry of Industry and Minerals had seen no development after privatisation. “The handover happened under suspicious conditions and without proper planning,” he remarked. 

Similarly, Al-Muthanna Provincial Council rejected the ministry’s decision to privatise the salt factory. However, their opposition was met with disregard; the ministry dismissed the council’s stance, accusing it of overstepping its jurisdiction. In response, the council announced its intent to file a lawsuit against the Ministry of Industry to halt the finalisation of the salt mine investment contract. 

Tensions deepened in 2017 when journalists attempting to cover the protests at the Samawa Salt Mine faced violent repression. A group of reporters from Alhurra, Al-Mirbad, and other outlets were assaulted by military personnel affiliated with the Al-Rafidain operations command, now known as the Sumer Command. The forces not only beat and insulted the journalists but also confiscated cameras and personal phones from the Alhurra crew, despite them having prior authorisation from the government office to enter and report from the site.  

The salt mine 

The Samawa Salt Factory began operations in 1989, boasting a production capacity of 200,000 tonnes of washed table salt annually, achieving a purity level of 98 per cent. The method involves dissolving rock salt in a depression approximately seven metres deep. The mine itself holds an estimated reserve of 45 million tonnes of raw salt, of which only ten per cent has been extracted to date. 

In 2023, the General Company for Mining Industries announced an ambitious plan to more than double the factory’s production capacity, aiming for 500,000 tonnes of raw and washed industrial salt per year under a new partnership with a private sector company. 

Haider Jabbar, the company’s director general, outlined several infrastructure expansions to support the increased production. These included boosting the number of settling ponds from ten to 15 and extending the conveyor belt length from 480 metres to 650 metres. He also noted that the salt mine now spans an area of 25 kilometres. 

However, not everyone welcomed the development. Ali Hanoush, an environmental expert and former member of the Al-Muthanna Provincial Council, expressed grave concerns to Jummar about the significant environmental toll of current operations. Chief among his concerns is the depletion of saline groundwater, which is pumped into massive ponds. Hanoush explained that producing a single tonne of salt consumes around 20 cubic metres of groundwater, a rate he described as unsustainable. When comparing the value of the extracted water to the selling price of salt—32,000 Iraqi dinars per tonne, around 27 US dollars—the environmental and economic losses, he argued, are stark.  

Hanoush emphasised that the salt mine is geopolitically connected to Lake Sawa, a site of significant global scientific and historic importance. Both lie along the same geological line. Since Lake Sawa is about six metres higher in elevation than the salt mine, the continuous pumping of groundwater lowers the lake’s water level, contributing directly to its alarming decline.   

“We suggested capping production at 200,000 tonnes per year to reduce environmental harm,” Hanoush said. “but our proposal was ignored.” 

As Lake Sawa continues to shrink, environmentalists warn that unchecked salt extraction may irreversibly damage one of Iraq’s most precious natural landmarks.  

Investment manipulation 

Ali Hanoush, the environmental expert, described the so-called investment in the Samawa Salt Mine as little more than a hollow slogan, lacking in genuine results. He raised serious concerns not only about the investor’s practices but also about the Ministry of Industry’s role in overseeing the project and its apparent exploitation. In Hanoush’s view, natural resources in Al-Muthanna Governorate have been reduced to instruments of manipulation and fraud rather than an opportunity for genuine development. Yet, he insisted, the salt mine should serve as one of the pillars for broad-based economic growth and multi-purpose investment in the region. 

Hanoush alleged that the current investor operates under the protection of a powerful political force, providing financial support in exchange for tolerance of the mine’s gross mismanagement and environmental degradation. This political backing, he said, has allowed abuse to continue unchecked, with no real oversight or accountability. 

“As a regulatory body, they tried to buy us off. We were subjected to pressure and attempts to silence us because speaking out about this file was unwelcome,” Hanoush stated. He argued that the best course forward would be for the Ministry of Industry to reclaim direct control over the factory. 

According to informed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, the company now controlling the salt mine is backed by a political faction affiliated with the Sadrist Movement. They noted that the mine was handed over during a period when the Minister of Industry was aligned with the Sadrists—a situation that has remained largely unchanged since. 

The investor’s view 

Thaer Al-Mousawi, the investor managing the Samawa Salt Mine, shared his perspective with Jummar, painting a picture of mounting losses and growing frustration. According to Al-Mousawi, the market for Iraqi salt is “not selling due to the opening of border crossings, which has led to unfair competition, especially with another salt mine in Basra. This investment harms us.” 

Al-Mousawi claimed that he had invested 60 billion Iraqi dinars into the project, only to find that salt is not selling as expected. “Neighbouring countries are importing salt, and consumers prefer to buy Iranian salt at eight US dollars instead of Iraqi salt at 20 US dollars.” He said, “How are we supposed to pay annual quotas, maintain equipment, and cover employee salaries?” 

He also rejected allegations of water wastage, stating, “What we use is less than any agricultural project that extracts groundwater. The company does not withdraw large amounts of water and therefore does not affect Lake Sawa.” 

Al-Mousawi added that current production has dropped to 300,000 tonnes annually, down from 500,000 tonnes, due to a request from Al-Muthanna Province and the Ministry of Water Resources to reduce water usage amid national shortages. 

He also claimed that when investing in the project, he faced major issues controlling the salt depression, which had been “taken over by local families who were stealing salt after years of dredging and restoration work”. He added, “This salt theft ended after we built a canal around the depression to keep people out.” 

However, accounts from former workers and local residents tell a different story. A former employee speaking anonymously for safety reasons recalled that when the factory was under the Ministry of Industry, it employed 150 workers. After the investor took over, he began pushing workers out, and the ministry relocated most of them to other branches, leaving only ten employees. 

According to the former worker, the investor now hires temporary labourers for a monthly wage of 500,000 dinars, around 300 US dollars, often working up to 14 hours a day without fixed schedules and performing tasks outside their skill sets. “The project no longer provides any real benefit to the region,” he said. 

Residents also accused the investor of abandoning the older wells in favour of newly tapped zones that yield twice the output, utilising electric and hydraulic pumps to boost extraction.  

Prior to privatisation, local families could extract around 30 tonnes of salt per week and sell it at a lower price than the factory, making their product more desirable. This led to conflict between the investor and local families, mainly as he used his political influence and backing to limit their access. 

Umm Noura mourned the loss of opportunities for women in the community. “The investor refuses to hire anyone from our area, especially women,” she said. 

Grandma Bunya, reflecting on the past, expressed dismay at how the salt mine and the community had changed. “In the past, women were essential to providing for the household. There was no difference between men and women regarding work.” She said that only men are registered at the factory now, leaving women excluded. 

Khawla, equally frustrated, added, “I’m tired of sitting at home. The investor refuses to hire women and instead brought in workers from Basra and Dhi Qar to spite our community.” She ended her conversation with Jummar bitterly, remarking, “The investor is a Sayed, so he should know what’s halal and what’s not”.