Iraqi woman breaks into car repair in a field few women dare enter

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Hadeel Saad Kazem did not walk into a garage intending to become a mechanic. She walked in because her car kept breaking down, and nobody around her could explain why.

That chance visit to a specialized workshop, she told Shafaq News, became the turning point. "I found a completely different environment that sparked my interest and pushed me to go deeper into this field." What started as frustration with a malfunctioning vehicle became a full professional pivot, one that placed her among a handful of Iraqi women to carve a path in automotive maintenance, a space almost entirely occupied by men.

The road to that garage was not straight. Returning to Iraq in 2018 after years in Syria, Hadeel found her secondary school certificate rejected by Baghdad authorities, the institution where she had studied was not recognized by the Ministry of Education, and she was told to repeat earlier academic stages. She turned instead to acting, working in theater and television between 2018 and 2020, then moving into television drama with director Ali Fadel in 2021, a career she continues today with Ramadan productions.

Digital content followed, food, then general topics, before cars took over entirely.

She trained under specialists Mundher al-Saqr and Ayman Calibra, and learned disassembly and maintenance from Ali Saeed. Today, she changes batteries and oil, diagnoses faults using electronic scanning devices, handles electrical problems, and dismantles wire harnesses. The Check Engine warning light, she said, is the fault she encounters most often.

Many clients still hesitate to hand their vehicle to a woman, and the sight of a woman inside a repair workshop unsettles a portion of Iraqi society. Her response, she said, is not an argument; it is results. Male friends now consult her regularly, and she has resolved several faults for them directly.

Her goal is a garage run by and for women, a space where female drivers can have their cars serviced without depending on a father, husband, or relative to make the trip to an industrial area. "My biggest dream is to open a garage that gives women a comfortable and safe environment to get maintenance services without needing to rely on anyone," she said. The project, she was careful to add, is not closed to men.

Between the stage, the screen, and the workshop floor, Hadeel is building a professional life that refuses the lines traditionally drawn around women in technical work in Iraq.