Category: Stories

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. 

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?

Stories

The secret recipe on how to respond to a harasser

What sex position do you prefer? What porn movie do you like? You seemed okay with it. It’s normal. I sent it by accident. You tell someone that you experienced cyber harassment and have these horrifying sentences in your chat as evidence. They respond, Just block him. You don’t have to just do that. Here is the secret recipe for responding to a predator.

Stories

“If I don’t drink tea, I feel like my head is going to explode.” On tea and people who are addicted to it in Iraq

Iraqis consume twice the average daily amount of tea. This is about the journey of tea, from import to brew.

Stories

Draft Iraqi law allowing 9-year-olds to marry would ‘legalise child rape’, say activists

Opponents fear proposed bill could allow girls as young as nine to marry, erode women’s rights and give greater powers to clerics

Stories

Ragpickers: How did environmental pollution become a source of livelihood, and of death? 

Hundreds in the city of Baqubah are risking their bodies and health to collect garbage, and then sell it. The risks do not threaten them alone and extend to the rest of the population. Ragpickers are a source of illness and the proliferation of microorganisms that transmit disease. But how much it is worth protecting one’s health, when collecting garbage can provide what many people need to make it through the day?