July 4, 2021

“I was 2 years old when my mother passed away, Therefore, my eldest sister was obligated to raise us. She would wash our clothes, and wake up early in the morning to prepare breakfast for my father and us. She was like a mother to us. We never felt like our mother had gone, because she would do all the things a mother would do. After 4 years of raising us, my sister got married. My father remarried to another woman who would treat us heinously most of the time. After a while, my youngest sister and I went to live with our brother. Life was not fine with him and his wife either, but she was better than our step mother. Later on, my sister and I got married. I am now a mother to 3 girls and 3 boys; I have become a grandmother as well. As for the tattoos on my face, the majority of Kurdish women have tattoos on their faces. I was 5 years old when my eldest sister tattooed my chin before she got married. I was still a child and did not want to be tattooed; but later on, I tattooed my hands as well. Nowadays, women do not tattoo their faces. That practice is almost vanishing and fading away”.