BAGHDAD — With hammer and saw, Nour Al-Janabi is building
her latest creation, a candy-pink sofa, in the carpentry workshop she runs in
male-dominated and conservative Iraq.
اضافة اعلان
“At the start, relatives criticized me,” said the
29-year-old carpenter and furniture-maker, who is also a mother of four.
“They would say: ‘But you’re a
woman, ... you’re an
amateur, ... it’s a men’s trade’.”
Covered in velvet or imitation leather, the sofas
and armchairs that she designs, makes and mends in her south Baghdad workshop
go from rustic style to Louis XV.
Her order book is full, with new lounges starting at
a cool 700,000 dinars (around $480).
Janabi has been making furniture for several years,
and launched her business, Nour Carpentry, a few months ago. She recently moved
operations from her home to a house turned workshop, where she has four
employees — one of them her retired husband.
“But it’s not right to say it like that,” she said
with an embarrassed smile.
In oil-rich Iraq,
women make up just 13.3 percent of the labor force, according to the World
Bank, while the
World Economic Forum ranked the country 154 out of 156 in its
latest Global Gender Gap Report.
A study published last year by two UN agencies noted
that while most Iraqis consider tertiary education equally important for men
and women, “attitudes toward equal rights in employment are discriminatory
against women”.
‘You make Iraq proud’
Janabi attributes her
success largely to do-it-yourself tutorials that she first posted on Facebook
to share her passion for carpentry and furniture-making.
She uploads videos — about everything from how to
re-stuff an old sofa to using a sander — to
TikTok and Instagram too, where she
has more than 94,000 followers.
“I am the first Iraqi woman to do this trade and
break the barrier in this field,” she claimed, in a country still largely
dominated by conservative attitudes about women’s role in society, and where
those perceived as too independent are sometimes even considered immoral.
One of her clients, Abu Sajjad, dropped by to see
how his sofa repairs were going — untroubled by prejudices some others might
harbor against dealing with a female carpenter and business owner.
Most working women in Iraq are teachers or nurses,
though a small number have entered the police or armed forces.
One of them is Angham Al-Tamimi, who this year became the
first woman army general.
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