“What should I do at home all day?” Wassa Nimrud asked Al-Monitor. “I am coming every day to Beit al-Nisa and improving my skills in sewing.” Nimrud is one of the women attending training sessions to become a professional tailor. Her second home, after she was displaced in Iraqi Kurdistan during the Islamic State's (IS) three-year occupation, has become Beit al-Nisa, the Women’s House, in the Assyrian-Christian city of Qaraqosh, 25 miles south of Mosul in the Ninevah Plains.
Every morning, each room at Beit al-Nisa is full of women working — as cooks, tailors, hairdressers, professional trainers and students. In addition, women can enroll in language and computer classes. “Before [IS’] occupation, in our town we didn’t have a house for women,” Vivine Elias, the tailor and trainer, told Al-Monitor. “Now that the city is still half empty, at least we have our own place to work and learn. To be together!”
