JEDDAH – Women in Saudi Arabia are now allowed to drive for the first time since the conservative Kingdom trashed the world’s only ban on female drivers on Sunday (June 24) through a royal decree.
The lifting of the ban, which follows a sweeping crackdown on women activists, is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reform drive to modernise the conservative petrostate.
Numbers of female drivers took the wheels after the desert Kingdom ended the decades-old ban, long a glaring symbol of repression against women.
The first women drivers were also welcomed by the Saudi police on the roads as the official distributed roses among them, showed the pictures circulating on social media.
The roses carried a message from the police, stating, “Wishing you safety.”
https://twitter.com/AlmuhanadSA/status/1010906626293891072
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“It is a historic moment for every Saudi woman,” Sabika al-Dosari, a Saudi television presenter who drove minutes after the ban was lifted in the eastern city of Al-Khobar, told AFP.
The move is expected to be transformative for many women, freeing them from their dependence on private chauffeurs or male relatives and resulting in big family savings.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/world/saudi-arabia-ends-decades-old-driving-ban-on-women/
“Those days of waiting long hours for a driver are over,” Hatoun bin Dakhil, a 21-year-old pharmacy student, told AFP.
“We no longer need a man.”
Earlier this month, the Kingdom began issuing its first driving licences to women in decades, with some swapping their foreign permits for Saudi ones after undergoing a practical test.
Some three million women in Saudi Arabia could receive licences and actively begin driving by 2020, according to consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
A handful of female driving schools have cropped up in cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, training women to drive cars and also Harley Davidson motorbikes — scenes that were unimaginable even a year ago.
Many Saudi women have ebulliently declared plans on social media to drive their mothers for coffee or ice cream as soon as the ban ends on Sunday, a mundane experience elsewhere in the world but a dazzling novelty in the desert Kingdom.
