Interestingly enough, there are places in this world where women do not share the same rights as men. In fact, Saudi Arabia currently holds the title as the only nation across the globe where females are banned from operating a vehicle. In fact, this has banning has been challenged in the past by women’s rights activists and now a Saudi prince is taking a stance on the issue.
MSN reported that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal took to Twitter this week with a post imploring people to stop debating about the issue, adding it is ‘time’ for women to drive.
While the prince does not have an official office, he does have some business relations with the ruling family. He is also quite dedicated to women’s rights issues. The prince took the time to issue a lengthier statement later, with was title ‘It’s high time that Saudi Women start driving cars’. Within the statement, he stated the need for increased in human rights for females in the kingdom. He compared allowing females the right to drive to allowing them to get an education, to offer an example to those who believe that heightening women’s rights would be harmful to their society; which he believes is overall wrong and simply unjust.
Alwaleed believes that giving women the right to drive isn’t only the proper thing to do, but it makes good sense when it comes to the economy. As he notes, it costs about $1,000 (or more) for families to hire private drivers for the women within the household. As oil prices stay low this year, many Saudi Arabia families have struggled as such. In fact, this past fall, foreign workers who kept the kingdom in order complained about working without pay, for months on end.
Government employees, which make up 70% of the working pool in the country had to launch strict measures, as such. They idea they have here is to prevent another terrible year, like the one that was had in 2015, where Saudi had a 100-billion-dollar deficit.
Sadly, Saudi Women have been protesting the right to get behind a wheel for years now. Every October 26th, they climb into the driver’s seat to protest these unjust laws, and hit the bumper car rides to get in some practice driving.
Hopefully things will change when it comes to Saudi driving laws and women, really soon.
