 Interior Minister Prince Naif downplayed the ongoing controversy on women driving in Saudi Arabia and said it was a social issue and must be decided by the Saudi society. "It looks like some people want to make it an issue but it's not," the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying. Prince Naif also said that women should have IDs if they want to have their own passports. According to press reports, women IDs would be made mandatory within four months for security reasons.
| It'll be moderately, but not extremely, interesting to see how many devout Soddy women refuse to take off their veils for their photos, and what the authorities' reaction will be... |
There has been a heated debate on the issue of women driving in the Saudi press after Mohammad Al-Zulfa, a Shoura Council member, tried to take up the matter at the 150-member consultative body. Zulfa introduced his proposal tactfully as part of an uncontroversial debate on road safety. He argued that lifting the ban on women drivers could resolve what he considers to be a serious social problem — the presence of some one million foreign drivers needed to enable Saudi women to move around. Zulfa said the obligation to hire a driver represented a financial burden for families with limited income, and cost the country more than SR12 billion ($3.2 billion) a year. He also argued that women and young girls spend long hours in the company of foreign drivers. "This is against Islam, for a woman to be with a stranger. It's forbidden," he said. On the other hand, "there is nothing in the Qur'an that says women do not have the right to drive," he added.
| "Hmmm..." replied Sheikh al-Kaboomi, the local holy man. "I guess that means they should just stay home all the time. Having them out and about must be un-Islamic. I shall issue the appropriate fatwah." |
Dr. Suhaila Hammad, a senior member of the National Society of Human Rights, said Prince Naif's words confirm that our leaders are not against women driving. "Our religious leaders also said that there is no religious prohibition of women driving and our traffic laws do not state that women can't have a driving license or drive," she said. "Many husbands would like their wives to drive because of the problems associated with foreign drivers," she said, adding that by allowing women to drive does not mean that they all have to, it is a matter of choice. |