HÊVÎ EZDA

Shengal (Sinjar)- Since the Yazidi community believes that white symbolizes purity and heaven, Yazidi women, particularly women over 40 wear white clothes. Many Yazidi women wore black clothes for a long time to mourn for the Yazidis who were massacred and kidnapped by ISIS in Shengal in 2014. But since the liberation of Shengal, Yazidi women have worn white clothes again.

 Yazidi women prefer to wear white and traditional Kurdish clothes on special days and in daily life. They buy fabrics and have tailors sew them.

Sarê Helîqî is one of the tailors sewing white and traditional Kurdish clothes in Shengal. “I am happy because people preserve their culture. Now, young people also prefer to wear white clothes,” she told us.

 ‘I am happy to sew traditional clothes’

Sarê Helîqî lives and has a tailor shop in Xanesor. She learned how to sew from her sister and she decided to start her own tailor shop when she received many orders. “I am happy to sew traditional clothes,” she said, “I earn a living for my family by sewing clothes. Before I run this shop with one of my friends; however, she moved from here. When she was with me, everything was easy for me but now I am alone.”

 The interest of young women makes her happy

 Noting that women prefer to wear white or traditional Kurdish clothes on special days, Sarê Helîqî said, “I sew clothes for women, young people and children. I just sew white and traditional Kurdish clothes at my shop. The interest of young women in white clothes makes me happy.”