As Saudi Arabia—the only country in the world that didn’t allow women to drive—finallylegalizes women drivers, we take a look at the relentless efforts of a woman who fought all the odds to make it a possibility.
Saudi women were fighting for their rights to drive for a long time, but their efforts gained momentum in 2011 when Manal al-Sharif, a trained IT consultant and women’s rights activist from Saudi Arabia, knowingly broke the law by driving a car while her friend filmed her. The video that called for a unified women’s movement by participating in a Women2Drive campaign on June 17, 2011 went viral on YouTube and Facebook.
The movement gathered support from Saudi women from all across the globe. As of 21 May 2011, about 12,000 readers of the Facebook page had expressed their support. Al-Sharif described the action as acting within women's rights, and "not protesting".
Her movement, even in the initial stage, gathered a lot of attention, she was, however, sent behind bars for 9 days for going against the rules. She was later released on ‘conditional’ bail.
Al-Sharif was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World”, and by Arabian Business as the most inspiring Arab woman. She was also awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum.
But a-Sharif was not the first woman in the restive land who dared to break the barriers. On November 6, 1990, 47 Saudi women in Riyadh drove their cars in protest against the driving ban. They were imprisoned for one day, had their passports confiscated, and some of them lost their jobs as a result of their activism.
Almost two decades later, in September 2007, the Association for the Protection and Defense of Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia, co-founded by Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, submitted a 1,100-signature petition to King Abdullah asking for women to be allowed to drive. 10 years later King Salman finally gave assent to women drivers in a historic move on 26 September, 2017.
In a country where the women have to abide by rigid laws set by the Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam, women still fall under the legal authority of a guardian. No matter what your social status, age, or education, if you are a woman, then you are always treated as a minor and in need of a legal guardian—a man—for your entire lie. Law in the land persists to 'protect women'. The fight for Saudi women—to redefine their autonomy and rights-- is far from over.
