For the last three years there was a ban on the sale of bikinis and nightgowns in Mosul. The terrorists strictly monitored that male shop vendors did not sell such goods to women.
There was always a large presence of terrorists in the trading places in the city and if they noticed that a male salesman was selling nightgowns or pajamas to a woman, he was arrested, beaten and fined $2,000.
For this reason, almost all the shops selling women's clothes and undergarments were shut down across the city.
A resident of Mosul, a 22-year-old writer, Teiba al Siraj, told Sputnik that “shops were forbidden to put any women's clothing on display. If someone saw a woman through an open shop door, the shop vendor was beaten with a whip and he ended up receiving a whole heap of problems.”
Later on, Daesh started allowing special women's shops to operate somewhat, but such shops were not allowed to put up any sort of signboards or advertisements.
The peculiarity of such shops was their lack of changing rooms, al Siraj said in an interview.
She recalls that women had to take an item from the shop, go home and try it on. Then they had to go back to the shop and either buy it or return it to the store.
“The situation was further complicated by the fact that it was prohibited to say your size in the store and that made it very difficult to find the right clothes,” al Siraj said.
According to the writer, the clothes were mainly brought in from Syria, after which Daesh checked to see if they were decent enough.
The price for lingerie and nightgowns was becoming quite expensive because terrorists imposed additional taxes on all such shops.
A 20-year-old Sora told Sputnik that lacy lingerie therefore had to be bought from smugglers at skyrocketing prices.
“In our area in the western part of Mosul, a woman named Um Zeid opened a secret store in her house with different women's clothing, including underwear, clothes for children and household goods,” Sora said.
The girl further said that Um Zeid used to charge a lot of money for these goods but women forgave her because everyone knew that she was in desperate need of money.
“Many women conducted such a trade and of course they put a surcharge, because they were the only breadwinners in their families. At the same time, they relieved us of the need to go to a store where we could run into Daesh,” Sora said.
She further said that all the women therefore went to the market only when it was absolutely necessary.
“Usually my father drove me by car to the Um Zeid store,” Sora concluded.
Finally with the return to peaceful life, women's clothing and lingerie stores are being reopened in Mosul.
Women like Sora, Tieba and thousands of others are happy that they can now fearlessly go to a shop and buy themselves whatever they need without fear of being punished for it.
The Daesh terrorist group took over Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, in June 2014. The operation aimed at liberating the city from terrorists began in October 2016.
On July 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi officially announced that Iraqi security forces had finally liberated Mosul after months of fighting against Daesh.
