Yazidi women change their black colored clothes to white and more colorful clothes after years of wearing black clothes to show solidarity with Yazidi women taken by ISIS.
With an initiative led by several Yazidi religious leaders and Sinjar Rozh Organization, over 50 Yazidi women decided to stop wearing black clothes. Instead, they started wearing white and more colorful clothes.
“Since the tragic event in Sinjar, I had been wearing black clothes because of the big crime ISIS committed against us and we also had to wear the same clothes under ISIS rule,” Ahlam Mia said.
We also had to wear the same clothes under ISIS rule
23 people of Ahlam’s family were taken by ISIS. One of her sons,12, was killed and seven of her siblings are still missing.
“No one experienced such sorrow and black days as much as we did. Huge part of the crime was committed against us, so it is not senseless to wear black clothes for years,” she added.
She has been freed from the ISIS caliphate for two years and now lives with her son and two daughters in Cham Mshko camp in Zakho district, 50 km northwest of Duhok province.
Ahlam stated, “my children often asked about the reasons for my black clothes. I could not fully explain it to them.”
My children often asked about the reasons for my black clothes
Part of her decision to abandon wearing black clothes, she told Kirkuk now, was because of her children so that they would enjoy life and would not grow with her grief.
Most Yazidis’ black clothes is to show solidarity with the suffers the Yazidis experienced at the hands of ISIS which took control of their town, Sinjar, northern of Mosul on August 3rd, 2014
6,000 Yazidis women and children were taken captive by ISIS. Still, 3,000 have not been rescued and are missing even though the physical caliphate of ISIS does not exist anymore.
Hussein Haji, head of media department of Rozh Organization, stated that, “over 50 Yazidi women have made that decision and the attempt will continue.”
The decision came after a filed trip by the initiative committee to Cham Mshko and Bersiv camp where they motivated the women to stop wearing black clothes.
In the two mentioned camps and many other areas in the Kurdistan Region, thousands of Yazidis are still displaced and have not returned to their home town.
