Nigerian women use fashion to ease the trauma of war
By
Fri Mar 12 2021
In the flat, colourless landscape of the displacement camp – the miles of sand interrupted only by rows of identical tarpaulin tents and huts – a young woman sews a bright pink dress.
Dressmaker Aisha Ismail is slender and shy. She is 28 but looks much younger. Alone, she takes care of her four children and two younger siblings – a common arrangement in camps across North-East, Nigeria, where women and children make up 80 per cent of the population. During the course of the decade-long armed conflict between armed groups and Nigeria’s military, nearly two million people have been forced from their homes.