OverDressed for Life

My wardrobe is a sort of an endless topic of fascination for people watching my stories. ‘Why is she dressed like a crow?’ For my security. Wherever possible, and obviously Syria is an extreme situation because it is so dangerous, I really prefer and feel better about doing my job if I am not the focus of everybody’s attention. In Syria, you will see me almost always wearing an abaya and hijab. That’s primarily because I could be kidnapped if people knew that I was a Western journalist. But it’s also because nobody looks twice at me when I wear that, and there’s something extremely liberating about that.

– Clarissa Ward, American journalist, war correspondent for CNN.