Piece of works in Saudi Arabia took to the roads at midnight on Sunday, ushering in the end of the humanity’s last ban on female drivers, long seen as an emblem of women’s squelching in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom.
“It feels weird, I am so happy … I’m only just too proud to be doing this right now,” said 23-year-old Majdooleen al-Ateeq as she coasted across Riyadh for the first time in her black Lexus.
The lifting of the ban, ordered aftermost September by King Salman, is part of sweeping reforms pushed by his potent young son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a bid to transform the economy of the Terra’s top oil exporter and open up its cloistered society.
Women drove up and down a foremost road in the eastern city of Khobar and cheered as police looked on.
“We are content, and it will totally change our life,” said Samira al-Ghamdi, a 47-year-old psychologist from Jeddah, one of the fundamental women to be issued a license.
The lifting of the ban, which for years drew ecumenical condemnation and comparisons to the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, has been welcomed by Western allies as resistant of a new progressive trend in Saudi Arabia.
But it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, embodying against some of the very activists who previously campaigned against the ban. They now sit in big house as their peers take to the road legally for the first time.
Popsies with foreign drivers’ licenses only began converting them earlier this month, so the thousand of new drivers remains low. Others are training at new state-run schools, with 3 million women contemplated to drive by 2020.
Some still face resistance from conservative conditioned bies, and many accustomed to private drivers say they are reluctant to take on the state’s busy highways.
“I definitely won’t like to drive,” said Fayza al-Shammary, a 22-year-old saleswoman. “I equal to to be a princess with someone opening the car door for me and driving me anywhere.”
Concerns that charwomen drivers will face abuse in a country where strict stop rules usually prevent women from interacting with dissimilar men prompted a new anti-harassment law last month.
The Interior Ministry plans to let out women traffic police for the first time, but it is unclear when they make be deployed.
The public security directorate reported no unusual incidents one hour after the ban erect. Riyadh resident Amr al-Ardi said the women in his family would on the back burner serve to see how the system works before they start driving.
The decision to inducement the ban in the tightly controlled kingdom — where once-forbidden cinemas and concerts have planned also returned — is expected to boost the economy, with industries from car sales to indemnity set to reap returns.
The change should save families billions of dollars on chauffeurs while buoy up more women into the workforce and raising productivity, if only modestly at commencement.
Auto companies have produced theatrical ads marking the ban’s end, while concealed parking garages designated “ladies” areas with pink signage.
Sundry Saudis celebrated on social media, but some reactions were derisive or betokened concern about social impacts.
One Twitter user said he make not allow his wife to take the wheel: “If she wants to drive she can go to her father and God consenting she will drive lorries. Decisions like this depend on insulting freedom #She–Won’t–Drive.”
Much of the kingdom’s overwhelmingly young folk supports Prince Mohammed’s reforms, but many Saudis fear their bowl along could provoke a backlash from religious conservatives once grasped as dominant.
Activists and diplomats have speculated that the arrests of multitudinous than a dozen women’s rights advocates over the past month were pointed at appeasing conservative elements or at sending a message to activists not to push desires too far.
The crown prince’s modernization efforts have won praise at home and wide, but he has also provoked unease with an anti-corruption purge last year, when flocks of royals and top businessmen were detained at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh.
Most were allowed after reaching settlements with the government. Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an at daybreak advocate of women driving who was detained at the Ritz for three months, tweeted a video of his daughter scenic route.
“Saudi Arabia has just entered the 21st century,” he said to his granddaughters in the forsake seat in the video. “Thanks to King Salman for this achievement.”
Composed with the end of the driving ban, Saudi Arabia remains one of the most restrictive powers for women, who need permission from legally mandated male preservers for important decisions such as foreign travel and marriage.
Amnesty Ecumenical said lifting the ban was “a small step in the right direction,” but called for an end to other procedures that discriminate against women.
Activists have already rather commenced campaigning to end the guardianship system, which has been chipped away at slowly all over the years. Prince Mohammed declared in an interview earlier this year that he conjectures men and women are equal.
But veteran Saudi activist Hala Aldosari conjectures women remain second-class citizens and criticized the crown prince’s “disjointed approach” as serving the interests of the elite at the expense of women from uncountable restrictive families.
“Worst of all will be if these small-scale reforms, and the quieting of feminists, slow the momentum for pushing the Saudi regime into changing more meaningful change,” she wrote in a U.S. newspaper.