Women drivers in Saudi?

These past few days, the world’s media focus has been on the royal kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which hosted a conference  of Arab heads of state, with the US President in attendance.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive. Although there are no formal written laws barring women from operating vehicles, they are not issued drivers’ licenses, making it illegal for them to drive.

Other restrictions faced by women in the ultra-conservative country include being forced to wear loose-fitting gowns and being barred from going anywhere without a male chaperone.

They cannot open bank accounts, work certain jobs, attend university, undergo medical procedures, or travel outside the country without permission of a male guardian – usually their husband or a close relative.

Some of the country's most prominent clerics have cautioned against females driving, issuing religious decrees against it. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh recently said that allowing women to drive was a “dangerous matter that should not be permitted.”

In 2013, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan said that females risked damaging their ovaries and producing children with clinical problems if they drove.

Campaigns lashing out at the ban were launched following the 2011 Arab Spring, which included women filming themselves driving. However, authorities quickly squashed the movement. The protest was reignited in 2013, only to be quelled by the government once again.

Despite his unwillingness to lift the ban on driving, the deputy crown prince said a while ago that “we believe women have rights in Islam that they're yet to obtain."

He also stated that more women in the workforce could help boost the country's productivity.

It appears though that Saudi Arabia is not yet ready to end the world's only ban on women driving cars.

 Despite moves towards rights for women under King Abdullah before his death, deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud has said the Saudi community “is not convinced about women driving”.

The 30-year-old prince asserted that the issue was not about Islam but about cultural norms.

Prince bin Salman has elsewhere appeared to indicate that he is supportive of increasing women's rights in the Sunni Islam-majority country. Yet he has said very recently that the “community” still thinks allowing women to drive will have negative consequences.

When asked why Saudi Arabia has one of the lowest rates of women in the workforce in the world he said that change would “take time”. “A large percentage of Saudi women are used to staying at home. They're not used to being working women. It will take time to change that paradigm”. He also said women working would help the country be more productive and deal with population growth issues.

The Shoura Council in the country, the king's advisory body, recently ruled that female television presenters should not “show off their beauty”, while a young woman who was raped while out by herself received more lashes in punishment than one of her attackers.

During his lifetime, King Abdullah opened the first co-educational university, named the first female deputy minister and said women could vote and run in municipal polls, despite strong opposition from religious clerics.

There are signs however that things may finally be changing as a result of global economic forces, particularly from the long-term decline in crude oil prices and the proliferation of autonomous transportation solutions.

Saudi Arabia now hopes its plan to bring a further 1.3 million women into the workforce by 2030 will be given a lift from ride-hailing apps Uber and Dubai-based rival Careem. The cars, which the government says should only be driven by Saudi men, offer women, who are banned from driving in the conservative Muslim country, an alternative to being driven to work by chauffeurs, male relatives or the shabby taxi system.

Saudi Arabia has been courting Uber and Careem by offering state investments to support its Vision 2030 economic reform plan. More to come next week.