Should Women Be Allowed To Drive in Saudi Arabia
Saudi women have severally staged some protests defying the driving ban act. The king has promised reforms, including allowing women to vote in municipal elections in 2015.
The recent protests should be fully encouraged. Whatever the women are doing on the streets is right. Saudi with its vast and unpopulated slow slung architecture, as well as cheap source of oil is a country that can be considered as made of cars. The capital city does not have sufficient public transport amenities, and as a result, women rely on other means of transport to get around and hire immigrant drivers at some considerable costs. There have been several international campaigns which have been identified as Women to drive campaign, and they have regularly been held along the streets of Saudi Arabia for quite a long time. Various ladies are reported to have been arrested and then later posted some bail pending forms of adjudication of their cases. Several other women who are reported to have defied the law on driving have reported the law to be quite oppressive, and have been seen calling upon fellow ladies to defy the law (Munajjed 134). A majority of these women actually claim that there is no particular enforceable form of law that is meant to prevent them from driving, but rather claim that the existing forms of guidelines that ban women from driving along the streets of Saudi Arabia are only religious and cultural norms. As a result of this form of struggle, there have been several scholarly works that have been done so far, in efforts to make the women across Saudi Arabia to be aware of their rights. Continue reading →