Women to drive movement

Common card · No. 370754

Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in which women were forbidden by law from operating motor vehicles. This restriction gave rise to the Women to Drive Movement (Arabic: قيادة المرأة في السعودية Qiyādat al-Mar’at fī as-Sa‘ūdiyyah), which advocated for women to be able to obtain a driver's license and drive cars on public roads; Saudi women have historically been denied many rights that Saudi men are entitled to. In 1990, dozens of women in Riyadh who had expressed dissent by driving were arrested and had their passports confiscated. In 2007, Saudi activist Wajeha al-Huwaider, who has also been among the leading figures of the campaign against male guardianship, was among several women who petitioned King Abdullah for the right to drive, and a film of her driving on International Women's Day in 2008 attracted international media attention. The beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011 motivated some Saudi women, including al-Huwaider and Manal al-Sharif, to organise a more intensive...

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