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Saudi Arabia's king issues order allowing women to drive

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Saudi Arabia's king issues order allowing women to drive

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ias-king-issues-order-allowing-women-to-drive


King Salman ordered the reform in a royal decree delivered on Tuesday night, requesting that drivers licences be issued to women who wanted them




File: 2013 A woman drives a car in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving. Photograph: Hasan Jamali/AP

Martin Chulov

Tuesday 26 September 2017 21.30 BSTFirst published on Tuesday 26 September 2017 20.23 BST

Women in Saudi Arabia have been granted the right to drive, overturning a cornerstone of Saudi conservatism that had been a cause celebre for activists demanding reforms in the fundamentalist kingdom.

King Salman ordered the reform in a royal decree delivered on Tuesday night, requesting that drivers licences be issued to women who wanted them.

The decision comes amid a broad reform program that last week led to women being allowed into a sports stadium for the first time.

It is the most significant change yet to a rigidly conservative social order in Saudi Arabia that has strictly demarcated gender roles, and severely limits the role of women in public life.

Earlier this month, a Saudi cleric was banned from preaching after saying that women should not be allowed to drive because their brains shrink to quarter the size of a man’s when they go shopping.

The move had been widely anticipated amid a transformation of many aspects of Saudi society that has been branded by one senior minister as “cultural revolution disguised as economic reform”. Recent months have seen live concert performances in Riyadh – albeit to male-only audiences – while the powers of the once-omnipresent religious police have been curtailed.

Saudi Arabia had been the last country in the world in which women were banned from driving – a fact that was frequently used by critics as proof that female citizens of the kingdom were among the world’s most repressed.

The most recent campaign to allow women drivers started in Saudi Arabia around 10 years ago, and reached a peak in 2013, when several women who had sat behind the wheel on the country’s roads were briefly arrested by police.

In response to the announcement, Manal al-Sharif, who became the public face of the campaign, after she was imprisoned for driving, tweeted: “Today the last country on earth to allow women to drive … we did it”.

Strict guardianship laws mean that husbands or fathers can prevent their wives or daughters from leaving the home without them. The laws gave cover to the driving ban, which has long been accepted by many in the intensely conservative kingdom.

A committee formed by senior officials will be now have 30 days to to study how to implement the move.

Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had viewed allowing women to drive as a key plank of reforms, insisting that the move would lead to higher female participation in the workforce and a breakdown of gender roles that limits social interaction between men and women outside immediate family environments.

However, the Crown Prince and his father, King Salman, had feared that moving too quickly on reforms would cause anger among the clerical establishment and elements of Saudi society who adhere to rigid scriptures of Sunni Islamic teachings that have taken root in large parts of the country over more than a century.


As well as being allowed to enter the National Stadium in Riyadh on Saturday to celebrate the 87th anniversary of the founding of the kingdom, women were also allowed to attend a concert in Jeddah.

In November 1990, 47 Saudi women drove their cars around Riyadh to protest the driving ban. They faced severe punishment at the time and the campaign died away until 2008, when Wajiha Huwaider dared to drive a car around the eastern provinces, escaping arrest.

From 2011 al-Sharif and another women, Najla al-Hariri, became global figureheads of a cause that drew the attention of global leaders, who had urged the Kingdom to overturn the ban.

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Senior scholars see no impediment to women driving in Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia authorities announced that women will be allowed to drive for the first time. (File photo: AP)
Staff writer, Al Arabiya EnglishWednesday, 27 September 2017
Text size granting driving licenses for women in Saudi Arabia confirmed that the majority of the members of the senior scholars' council saw no impediment to women driving.

The royal decree stated that Saudi Arabia will implement the provisions of traffic regulations, including the issuance of driving licenses for men and women alike.

A high-level committee will also be established, involving the ministries of internal affairs, finance, labor and social development. They will be tasked with studying the arrangements to enforce the new law.

Last Update: Wednesday, 27 September 2017 KSA 23:16 - GMT 20:16
 
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1167916/saudi-arabia


JEDDAH: The US on Tuesday led an international welcome for Saudi Arabia’s decision to allow women to drive.

The historic move, ordered in a decree by King Salman, will see women get behind the wheel from June next year.

“We’re happy to hear that,” said US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

“It’s a great step in the right direction. We’re just happy today. A very positive sign,” she said.

The decree, issued on the state-run Saudi Press Agency, said women in Saudi Arabia would be able to obtain driving licenses and drive cars.

News of the decision became the top trending topic on Twitter, with many posts tagged #SaudiWomenCanDrive.

The decree referred to the “negative effects of not allowing women to drive vehicles, and the positive effects envisaged from allowing them to do so” within the context of Islamic law.

The decree also pointed to the fact that the majority of the Council of Senior Scholars agreed that women driving was not prohibited by religion, and therefore they did not oppose allowing them to drive in principle.

“The scholars see no reason not to allow women to drive as long as there are legal and regulatory guarantees to avoid the pretexts (that those against women driving had in mind), even if they are unlikely to happen,” said the decree.

The king instructed the Ministry of the Interior to apply traffic regulations, including the issuance of driving licenses, equally to both men and women.

The move was announced on television and also by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the royal decree mandating the creation of a high-level committee of ministries (including the Interior Ministry, Finance Ministry and the Labor and Social Development Ministry) to study the necessary steps needed to implement the regulations.

“The committee must submit its recommendations within 30 days. The implementation — God willing — will be from Shawwal 10, 1439 (corresponding to June 24, 2018) and in accordance with rules and regulations, and the completion of the necessary steps,” said the decree.

In Washington, the Saudi Ambassador Prince Khaled bin Salman described the decision as a huge step. “It’s not just a social change, it’s part of economic reform,” he said.

“Our leadership believes this is the right time to do this change because in Saudi we have a young, dynamic open society.”

The reaction within Saudi Arabia was swift and emotional.

“I am on top of the world,” Lina Almaeena, a Shoura Council member, told Arab News from Bern, Switzerland, where she is part of the official Shoura Council delegation to Switzerland.

“This historic decision and announcement is really going to make a difference in many, if not most, Saudi families. Economically, it is going to decrease the burden on families; socially it will be much better for women to have control over their lives, not always waiting for a man who is no relation to her; or being in a car alone with a stranger whose background she is not aware of.”

Almaeena said the decree allowing women to drive was part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Vision 2030. It was about women’s empowerment and equal opportunities for men and women, whether in the work force or anywhere else, she said.

“These things are all connected. Women can drive and even if they are not working, they can drive their families to work or their children to school. Fathers are not always available.”

Almaeena said there was a general expectation that Saudi women would be allowed to drive. “But were we expecting this decision tonight? No, this has come as a very pleasant surprise,” she said, thanking King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Samia Al-Amoudi, a prominent businesswoman and breast cancer survivor in Jeddah, told Arab News: “The idea of women’s empowerment would have remained incomplete without allowing women to drive.

“I am happy that women are allowed to drive and that my daughter will be allowed to drive. This is a great day for Saudi Arabia.”

Italy’s Consul General Elisabetta Martini also welcomed the decision. “We want to congratulate all Saudi women on this opportunity given to them by the king. We wish them safe driving,” she told Arab News.

Amena Bakr, a Saudi energy analyst, said it was a “massive victory for women in the kingdom.”

“Really about time,” she said.

The issue of women driving has been the subject of debate in Saudi Arabia for many years.

"The Kingdom’s leadership has determined — correctly — that the time has come for it to be resolved,” said Fahad Nazer, international fellow at the Washington-based National Council on US-Arab Relations.

"There is wide support for the decision among both Saudi women and men. The issue was never about religion or culture. It has always been about the readiness of Saudi society. It is a very important step in the right direction.”
 
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Saudi Arabia: King Salman orders driving licenses for women
71e2956e-f070-46ba-8d99-6094faaec971_16x9_788x442.jpg

Staff writer, Al Arabiya EnglishTuesday, 26 September 2017
Text size Senior scholars see no impediment to women driving in Saudi Arabia

“This is a great victory for many Saudi women. This was the one file and issue which Saudi women have fought not just years, but decades for. Every time we asked, we were told the time was not right. When we asked those previous from this men and women who said we didn’t need to drive, King Salman,” Latifa Shaalan, a Saudi female member of Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council, told Al Arabiya.

Economic impact
“This will have a huge impact on Saudi Arabia’s economy. We have to remember that our kingdom produces more female graduates compared to our male counterparts,” Ghada Ghunaim, Saudi writer and journalist told Al Arabiya.

In Saudi Arabia, most families depend on private drivers to personally help transport their female relatives to school, work and other places.

RELATED: Saudi women reactions to new driving decree flood Twitter

According to the latest statistics, there are nearly 800,000 men, most from South Asia, who work solely as drivers to Saudi women.
Ghunaim told Al Arabiya English Tuesday’s royal decree will inevitably also help poor and middle-class families.

“A lot of families in Saudi Arabia are not able to afford paying a driver a monthly salary, this royal decree will help ease a lot of families who struggle with their women not being able to drive,” she added.

Last Update: Wednesday, 27 September 2017 KSA 23:40 - GMT 20:40
 
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