Reports

Iraq’s deer threatened by hunger: Who will save the gazelles of Ali Al-Gharbi? 

The Iraqi authorities are procrastinating in providing half a kilogram of barley for al-reem, Iraq’s Arabian sand gazelles. The Iraqi natural reserves are not regulated by law and lack financial allocations and forage for their animals.

Stories

Second-floor voting: Iraqis that can’t reach ballot boxes 

We interviewed 12 organisations concerned with the affairs of disabled people in Iraq and eight people with mobility and visual disabilities who were unable to participate in the 2021 elections. They unanimously agreed that the government had failed to facilitate their participation in voting over the past two decades. Will this be repeated in local elections?

For days before the parliamentary elections on October 10, 2021, Mohammed Al-Ajeeli hoped to participate and vote for the candidate he deemed worthy.

Stories

Vision Beyond the Eye: On Blindness and Sight in Theatre and Football

Darkness has become their world. It is an experience they don’t want anyone to have. Yet, they learn from it. It inspires them. Details are not merely daily habits or fleeting actions in that world. They are like big achievements— indeed they are big achievement. About blindness, its world, and its community in Iraq. 

Reports

Tower 716: How did a residential area become a cancer hotspot?  

An investigation into the fates of 20 cancer patients in Neighbourhood 201 in Baqubah, and the geographical scope of their cases which cover the area of Tower 716, operated by the telecommunications company Asiacell. Do mobile towers cause cancer? Why are people dying in this place? A residential area evacuated by a tower which is splitting families apart.

Reports

Breathing life into a dead language: what remains of colloquial Mandaic in Iraq 

In the Iraqi dialect, when someone says, “I went home”, tabeet al-bayt, or “I entered the house,” dasheet al-bayt, half of what they are saying is in the Mandaean language. When a folk poet recites a poem about his mother’s sheela, it is taken from sheyala, which is the head covering of a Mandaean woman. The same applies to a singer who begins with “Woe, Woe”. Breathing life into a dead language: what remains of Mandaean dialect in Iraq

Reports

The Children of mothers incarcerated in Iraqi prisons: No records, no education, no life 

Sajjad, Muammal, Zahra, and Ruqayya have had no formal schooling. Nor have they been issued with appropriate identification papers. They are the victims of circumstances of bad luck which placed their mothers into prison.

Stories

“Your​​ son takes after his dad”. How does our skin colour transform from being an identity marker into a tool used for bullying? 

I was ten years old when I first heard a girl innocently say that my skin colour wasn’t beautiful, or in her words: ugly. She went on to ask me if I showered every day because my skin appeared dark to her. At that time, I didn’t understand what it meant to be a white girl, a brown girl, or “Black and ashy.” How does our skin colour transform from being an identity marker into a tool for bullying?

Stories

We endlessly say no but the taxi driver still doesn’t listen 

These are stories of women who just wanted to go from A to B. But Mr Taxi, who thinks he knows everything and loves his taxi because he enjoys doing the rounds across Iraq, keeps sharing his stories, many of which are underpinned by harassment. How do women feel when they keep saying no and Mr Taxi doesn’t listen?

Stories

My identity was tolerated only when convenient: on navigating college life as a Trans Man 

I have always hated clichés, for example “being born in the wrong body” and “feeling like you’re in a cage.” I feel that cliches limit trans identity by viewing it as a body-exclusive condition rather than something that permeates every part of your life and infiltrates it like a plague. Transgender identity has always felt more to me than a physical struggle. It’s more like a battle of soul and quest for belonging.

Stories

We fell into a trap: How do foreign workers live in Iraq? 

Foreign workers tell the story of escaping from their countries, arriving in Iraq in search of better lives. They reveal what they faced, from brokers and middlemen to smugglers and those who benefit from illegal immigration. How do foreign workers live in Iraq?