No more backseat driving for Saudi women, now

Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world to forbid women from driving, will lift the ban from 2018 but activists on Wednesday said it is only the first step in a long list of demands for equality.

The conservative kingdom’s surprise decision on Tuesday to grant women the right to drive marks a significant expansion in women’s rights, nearly three decades after women began agitating for it.

As recently as 2013, dozens of women uploaded videos online of themselves behind the wheel of a car during a campaign launched by Saudi rights activists.

While women in other Muslim countries drove freely, the kingdom’s blanket ban attracted negative publicity. Neither Islamic law nor Saudi traffic law explicitly prohibited women from driving, but they were not issued licenses and were detained if they attempted to drive, an AP report said.

The decision to change course and grant women licenses was praised by the White House, which said President Donald Trump views the change as “a positive step toward promoting the rights and opportunities of women in Saudi Arabia”.

Prince Khaled bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington and the king’s son, said letting women drive is a “huge step forward” and that “society is ready”.

In 1990, 50 women were arrested for driving and lost their passports and their jobs. More than 20 years later, a woman was sentenced in 2011 to 10 lashes for driving, though the late King Abdullah overturned the sentence.

As recently as late 2014, two Saudi women were detained for more than two months for defying the ban on driving when one of them attempted to cross the Saudi border with a license from neighbouring United Arab Emirates in an act of defiance.

Tuesday’s decree indicated that women will not be allowed to drive immediately. A committee will be formed to look into how to implement the new order, which is slated to take effect in June 2018.

For years, the kingdom has incrementally granted women more rights and visibility, including participation in the Olympic Games in London and Rio, positions on the country's top consultative council and the right to run and vote in local elections in 2015.

Despite these openings, Saudi women remain largely subject to the whims of men due to guardianship laws, which bar them from obtaining a passport, traveling abroad or marrying without the consent of a male relative. Women who attempt to flee abusive families have also faced imprisonment or been forced into shelters.