The 14th Eid comes to people in the capital Damascus since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011. What is the situation of a simple Syrian citizen with limited income this holiday?
The purchase of new clothes is one of the means of expressing the joy of Eid, which is lost by most of the population of Damascus because of the low value of the Syrian pound and weak purchasing power, and the total absence of the labor market, and the price of clothing increased dozens of times.
This pushed people to find alternative and resort to the markets of the sale of used clothes regardless of their source in an effort to secure the Eid clothes for cheapest prices, and not to deprive children from the joy of Eid.
The price of child trouser jeans ranges between 5000 SP to 8000 SP in the popular markets. In malls and brands frequented by members of the bourgeois class only, the lowest price is 20000 SP, or $ 40 when the government employee's salary is $ 100, which is one-third of the Syrian family's monthly needs, according to a study prepared by the pro-Assad al-Watan newspaper in the first quarter of last year.
Used clothes markets in the capital are very crowded in the holiday seasons. They are real and acceptable alternatives to the new clothes that families cannot afford, according to H.Z, a mother of three living in Sheikh Saad area in Damascus.
She adds that the clothing market saves money for families from which she can buy up to $ 50 for her entire family, while if she wants to buy from the new clothing stores that are popular in the market, she would have paid more than $ 300. In addition to the fact that she saves this money for the priorities of life.
The sale of used clothing is a feature of the capital markets of Damascus, and there is no market and street without the existence of a number of stores that sell them, and the war played a large role in the prosperity of this market significantly.
According to official data, , the average income of the Syrian family before 2011 is between 400 and 600 US dollars, and in 2017 after seven years of bloody and continuous war the average income of one family does not exceed $ 150, if the husband and wife both work.
The used clothes market is not only visited by the poor but also by the well-offs, according to F.D from al-Zuhoor neighborhood in Damascus.
F.D told Eqtsad, the markets for used clothing contain everything the family needs from clothing, school uniforms to wedding clothes to underwear, shoes.
According to her, families in Damascus resort to second hand markets at the beginning of the winter and summer seasons and the holidays and the beginning of the academic year. The displaced in the capital have large share as they lost all personal belongings left behind during the journey of internal displacement.
"Everyone in the community comes to used clothing markets and most of them are middle-class people who became rare in society," said Mr. J.R, the owner of a clothing store.
The low quality of domestically produced goods and the high price of imported goods are the main reasons for people's preference for second hand markets in the areas of Itfaiye and Sheikh Saad in central Damascus, according to J.R.
In light of the war conditions and the lack of work, and the disbursement of money to provide basic necessities of life and rents of houses, and the high price of clothing due to the rise in the price of the dollar and not to reduce prices during the decline of the dollar, the purchase of used clothes no longer embarrass the Syrian society of all classes to buy from these markets which became major competitor that could not be excluded from the sale of new clothes of local or imported manufacture.
There is a difference between the clothing used today in Damascus, and between the "bala", which are used clothing from European source, and its import stopped, and if these were available in Damascus, the price is more than $ 100 per piece. The most commonly used clothing, for the most part is from local sources.
