Iraq’s trailblazing oil women: In oil-rich country, few girls buck norms to take rig site jobs

BASRA: It’s nearly dawn and Zainab Amjad has been up all night working on an oil rig in southern Iraq.

She lowers a sensor into the black depths of a well until sonar waves detect the presence of the crude that fuels her country’s economy.

Elsewhere in the oil-rich province of Basra, Ayat Rawthan is supervising the assembly of large drill pipes.

These will bore into the Earth and send crucial data on rock formations to screens sitting a few meters (feet) away that she will decipher.