“We demand that the right of women to drive is given back to us. It’s a right that was enjoyed by our mothers and grandmothers in complete freedom to utilize the means of transportation in those times.” A group of Saudi women gave a petition to the government asking to be allowed to drive cars. This is the first action taken by a newly formed society that calls itself “The Society for Protecting and Defending Women’s Rights.” One of the petition drive’s organizers, Fawzeyah Al-Oyouni, a human rights activist and wife of poet Ali Domaini along with poet and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaidar and social worker Haifa Osrah and others, said that the group also aims to tackle other issues, such as domestic abuse.
The petition, which has been posted on different Saudi websites and circulated through e-mails, asked not only Saudis but also people from around the world to sign their names. “Women are in urgent need of driving; it’s a basic need,” said Al-Oyouni, She added “King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques said that Saudi women would be permitted to drive someday. It is not a political issue, it is a social one, and that the government does not object to women driving.” She further said that most people agree that Islam doesn’t forbid women from driving. The problem, she said, is that the government isn’t moving fast enough to implement the necessary actions to open the way for a smooth transition toward allowing women to drive. They reminded other women that “rights are not given or earned, they’re taken.”
Government officials made statements indicating that the decision of women driving is up to society and not the repeal of any law. Indeed, there is no law in the Kingdom that explicitly states that women can not drive. The ban comes from a strict interpretation of the woman’s need to be with a legal guardian (a mahram – means a woman should be accompanied by her father, husband, son or brother) in public. Scholars in Saudi Arabia argue that allowing women to drive would mean they might interact with unrelated men, such as police officers or men who come to assist them in the event of their car breaking down. “The Interior Ministry’s stand is clear on this,” said ministry spokesman Gen. Mansour Al-Turki.
Saudi novelist and columnist Abdu Khal wrote in his article, titled “What would happen if we let women drive?” that the interpretation is flawed. In many cases, the only alternative women have is to use drivers, which forces them to interact with unrelated men. He added that Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving has isolated it from the rest of the world, including the Islamic world. “Other than our scholars, of course, no one has said that allowing women to drive might lead to moral corruption,” wrote Khal. “Are we the only Muslims on Earth?”
After the rape of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, to safeguard Saudi Arabia, US troops landed in the country and subsequently women soldiers also arrived and were seen driving their military vehicles on Saudi roads. Emboldened by this act, some Arab women ventured on the roads on Nov. 6, 1990 driving cars publicly and demanding the right to drive, but 47 of them were briefly detained. After this, the debate disappeared from the media for a few years and recently it has re-emerged as a topic that is no longer a taboo.
In the meantime it is reported, across the Kingdom, women travelling in taxis without their husbands or male relatives are exposed to dangers and often harassed by drivers. A newspaper interviewed a number of women in Taif to assess the problem. “Taxis are very important to me. My husband is always out. I often need to do the shopping for home and so I end up relying on taxis. Moreover, my daughter’s wedding was close and we are doing a lot of shopping these days. The amount of money we spend on hiring taxis is more than what we spend on paying electricity and telephone bills,” said Fatima, a housewife. “Once I was doing shopping with my daughter and we bought some gold. I left three sets of gold jewellery in the taxi and realized I had forgotten them only when I reached home. I called the police but it was useless. I couldn’t remember any details about the taxi except that the driver was a Saudi,” Fatima, highlighted the difficulties she faced when using taxis.
Aisha, another housewife, said, “My child had fever and his temperature rose to around 41 degrees Celsius. I had to go to the hospital myself late in the night. I caught a taxi. On the way back, the taxi driver tried to molest me.” She added, “I was so scared. I just asked him to drop me on the road. I walked the remaining distance. I cried as I had to carry my child all the way home.” Hawraa, another housewife, said, “I wish we could drive and be self-dependent and not be at the mercy of our brothers or sons. A taxi driver once sexually harassed me, when I was out doing shopping. He tried to drive me to a different location to what I had specified but I realized what he was doing and stopped him. I’m glad God saved me from that person.”
Taxi drivers are also known to harass women passengers by flirting with them, playing loud music and smoking. Reem and Sawsan, students at Taif University, said some taxi drivers use the front mirror to look at women passengers and try to attract their attention by playing with their hair and singing. Sawsan said she finds it strange that taxi drivers do not use counters. “They take advantage of our need for a taxi and ask for lots of money,” she added. Reem said, “I wish women would be allowed to drive in the Kingdom. This is better than being harassed by taxi drivers.”
Meanwhile, some taxi drivers also complained about the behaviour of young female passengers. “Some girls behave badly like putting on extra makeup and laughing out aloud. Others flirt with drivers to avoid paying fees and then hand them wrong phone numbers,” said Hasan, a taxi driver. Omar Al-Husaini, head of Taif’s Ministry of Transport, said, “The ministry is only responsible for giving licences. We have nothing to do with regard to the problems between drivers and passengers.”A well-regarded Saudi religious scholar commented that there is nothing in Islamic law that bans women from driving and that the Fatwas issued in this regard are based on individual judgments. “In principle women driving is permitted in Islam,” said Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, a member of the Kingdom’s Council of Senior Islamic Scholars. The ban, he said, has to do with the social complications rather than the act itself. As an example, the sheikh referred to a Fatwa from former Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin-Baz that said it is permitted for women in rural areas to drive cars, but that they should be forbidden from driving in the cities where, as Al-Obaikan said, “youths (even) harass women accompanied by parents and drivers. He said if certain issues are resolved, such as the problem of men’s behaviour and traffic safety, then he sees no religiously motivated conflict with women driving.
Sheikh Mehsin Al-Awaji, another prominent religious scholar in the Kingdom, agreed. “No religious scholar is going to tell you differently,” he said. “But the issue of women driving comes as a ‘package’ and we need to fix the ‘package’ before making the decision to allow women to drive.” Expanding on the idea that allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia comes with a “package” of issues, Al-Awaji said there needs to be Saudi women working as police officers, mechanics and other positions. The sheikh diminished the significance of women driving, saying that myriad social reforms have higher priority, even in the realm of empowering women or encouraging public participation in important social challenges.
But in reality women are occasionally arrested when found driving. Media reported several instances in recent years of situations where women have been stopped by authorities and detained for the infraction of driving a vehicle. A newspaper asked 125 men what they thought of the issue. 10 men categorically opposed the idea; 36 men were fully in support of an unqualified lift on the social ban; and the rest would be OK with women driving with a few ground rules. Most of the men who expressed reservations to an unqualified lift on the social ban, 80 of them said they were concerned about safety due to the hazardous conditions on Saudi roads and lack of sufficient enforcement of traffic laws. 16 men expressed religious reservations; 21 men expressed financial reasons while 8 expressed social concerns.
Four hundred Saudi and non-Saudi women were asked about the subject. Out of this survey, it was found that 282 of these women would drive cars on their own, without a male guardian. 44 women said they would continue to use drivers. 30 women said they would only drive with their male guardian in the car. 32 women said they would drive with a relative in the vehicle. A dozen women said they opposed the idea of women driving. Out of these women, 122 said they wouldn’t drive on Saudi roads due to safety concerns while 296 said they would have to see better enforcement of rules before they would feel safe driving. 72 women said they’d rise to the challenge of driving in Saudi Arabia’s traffic.
My humble suggestion to respected Saudi women is to learn their driving lesson in Sri Lanka where we have enough lady instructresses. If you get accustomed to our driving system and manage the ‘hell drivers’ found on our roads and also tackle the pedestrians who appear from no where to cross at their will, your fear psycho will vanish and you would feel competent to go for grand prix races even because our roads are nothing else but racing tracks. At the same time this will drive our tourism efforts or we will have new ‘drive tourists’ campaigns.
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