In Iraq, Mosul’s Women Find Freedom in Female-Only Transport

Co-published with Middle East Uncovered.

The clang of construction rings loud throughout Mosul, where homes, cafes and historic monuments are still emerging from the rubble. Eight years after Iraqi security forces, including Kurdish Peshmerga forces, declared victory over ISIS, Iraq’s second-largest city is still forging a new identity as battle-scarred buildings give way to fresh facades, leaving the bitter years of occupation behind. 

It’s a far-cry from 2017, when a nine-month battle to reclaim Mosul decimated the city. Many residents remained in displacement, unable to see a future there. Hakam Hesham, 25, was among a handful of local entrepreneurs brave enough to try. After watching female friends and family lose their freedom under ISIS — which held about a third of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq at the time — he wanted to build a business that would give women the chance to rebuild their lives.

In 2023, he launched Lygo, a taxi service for women — becoming the first Iraqi-led service of its kind to both employ and cater to female customers. “It would have been easier to start in one of the larger cities where people are more open-minded, but it means a lot to me to do this here,” said Hesham, who grew up in Mosul.

A young woman in Mosul using Lygo, a taxi service designed for women’s safety.

Initially staffed by female drivers, the company has revolutionized travel in the conservative city, which lacks a formal public transport network and has a decidedly male-dominated workforce across several sectors. Many women in Mosul are not allowed to travel alone, and few drive, forcing them to skip classes, bypass job offers and miss out on social activities. 

Historically a diverse and tolerant city, the years after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 saw a rise in Salafism, a fundamentalist movement within Sunni Islam, as Mosul became one of the most conservative places in Iraq. This intensified during the ISIS occupation between 2014 and 2017, when women in particular were denied many freedoms. Mixing between genders became impossible and remains difficult as the restrictions of the past compete with calls to open up the city.

“If a woman doesn’t have a car, or one of her male relatives doesn’t, she cannot go anywhere,” Hesham said in 2023. Today, the company takes 300 to 350 orders per day from its female customer-base, who often rely on the service to go to work and attend to their daily lives.

Women like Safa Fawzi, who travels from Mosul to Baghdad, and uses the Lygo app to travel to source clothes for her shop in Ashur Mall. While her parents are supportive, hailing taxis in the street or relying on rides from friends is out of the question for the 26-year-old. “I wouldn’t have been able to carry on without Lygo because I come from a very conservative environment,” Fawzi said. 

A woman driver using the Lygo app to provide safe transportation for women in Mosul.

Initially, it was the promise of female drivers that made women like Fawzi feel safe. During that time, Lygo expanded from two to 42 female drivers in the space of a year, thanks to a flexible working environment and higher wages for female drivers. Since then, Hesham has begun to hire male drivers, too, to meet mounting demand. “Female drivers were not able to work after 4 or 5 p.m., so we had to go to a majority of male drivers,” Hesham explained, citing social restrictions that prevent many Iraqi women from being out alone in the evening.

After a brief lull as customers adjusted to the change, his business bounced back. “Women would rather hire from a company they know than get a taxi from the street to drive them,” he added. Harassment is not uncommon in Mosul, with lone female travelers particularly at-risk, forcing many to rely on male relatives to move around the city. Lygo’s reputation as a safe and socially acceptable form of transport allowed it to continue attracting new female customers, even after adding male drivers to its fleet.

The company now employs 150 drivers in Mosul, including 15 women, and is able to reach clients within 10 minutes of ordering via its new app. This promise has kept them ahead of competition from new ride-hailing apps in Mosul, including Alo, Aman, and Line.

Each Lygo driver displays their ID card and the company provides GPS tracking in real time. For Fawzi, this is sufficient reassurance to travel outside the city for work. Around her shop at the mall, more women are setting up businesses, signalling a cultural shift. “For me, the role of women is no less than [the] role of men, and people are starting to realize that,” the 26-year-old said.  

A high-school student when ISIS seized control of her city in 2014, she believes the strength of women in Mosul, or “Maslawi” women, will drive a new era of development. “Many women are looking into opening their businesses, which is good for the city and the area in general,” she says. “Living through ISIS rule wasn’t pleasant, but it made us more determined; if we can survive ISIS, we can survive anything.”

A lot has changed since those dark days, when extremists overran the city. Despite attempts to stifle communication, stories soon emerged of public executions and armed vice squads patrolling the streets. Women hid indoors fearing forced marriage to ISIS fighters and families kept children home from school, where curricula were re-written to radicalize the next generation.

“Under ISIS rule, people would never leave [the] house after dark, especially females… now women have their own businesses,” Hesham said. 

“The city today is unrecognizable. Back then, uncertainty governed everything. We had no idea how things would end up,” he said. “Now that’s changing and people can plan ahead.” 

For Lygo, that means ongoing expansion of the business to reach 1,000 cars by 2027. Under ISIS rule, there was very little money in the market as people stashed valuables and hid what savings they had. “Now people are spending money because they feel safe.”

While new opportunities are giving women a chance to participate in Mosul’s recovery and rebuild their lives after ISIS, challenges remain. Incorporating male drivers into the Lygo workforce was a difficult decision, but one Hesham believed was necessary in a city where women are still expected to conform to societal norms.

“Some males are still resistant towards the idea that females could actually be better than them at certain positions,” said Mohammed Al-Samarrai, co-founder at QAF Lab, an incubator supporting entrepreneurs in Mosul.

As female participation in the workforce increases, he is confident attitudes will evolve with the times. And, with services like Lygo enabling women to participate in society, the benefits are beginning to be felt. 

“These cultural barriers will dissolve when we have more women represented in the private sector as employees or as entrepreneurs running their own successful businesses,” Al-Samarrai said. “Families are realizing the importance of having women as a main contributor in the economy and the value of financial independence for young women.”