From the hardest hit Iraqi cities rises the voice of women united and defiant in the face of atrocities committed by ISIS. The Nineveh governorate in northern Iraq witnessed some of the most brutal acts of terror during the rule of ISIS, but despite the devastating horror and debilitating pain, Nineveh’s women have decided to respond to ISIS’s hegemony, extremism, and ignorance with beautiful literature that reflects their determination and resilience.
The incredibly diverse province of Nineveh is home to Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds, as well as the Mandaean, Shabak and Yazidi ethnoreligious communities. In the Nineveh Plains region of the province located to the north and east of Mosul, activists have banded together to create a new publication that aims to give a voice to the women who were silenced under ISIS. The magazine, named Women of Nineveh, was the idea of the Peace and Freedom Organization (PFO), an Iraqi NGO that works to ease and improve ties between the different ethnic and religious groups of northern Iraq. Activists and journalists from across the region’s different sects – including Yazidis, Christians, Shabaks, Shias and Sunnis – attended a training session and wrote articles for the magazine’s first edition, published on Sunday for International Women’s Day.
One of the project’s major goals is to dispel disinformation, rumors and tensions about the region’s various religious sects which have proliferated post-ISIS. For example, some of Ninevah’s Christians accuse Shabaks of taking their homes, while others believe incorrect stereotypes about the Yezidis, such as the belief that they worship the devil. An article in the magazine’s first edition, titled “How a Sunni imam helped Christian and Shiite families remaining in Qaraqosh”, includes an interview with Imam Abd al-Hakim Qasim by a Shabak woman. Qasim told the story of how he helped the few Christian and Shia families that stayed behind in Qaraqosh after ISIS took over by bringing them food and water.
