Dubai, March 07: Two years after Wajiha al-Huwaidar defied a Saudi ban on women driving by posting a video on the Internet showing her cruising in a remote area, she still dreams of getting behind the wheel like her other Gulf sisters.
Huwaidar’s brazen act on International Women’s Day 2008 was a symbolic gesture in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where women’s rights lag way behind those in other nations in the oil-rich Gulf.
“I’m still dreaming of driving,” the women’s rights activist — whose 2008 You Tube video registered some 190,000 hits — told AFP in a telephone interview.
Unlike other Arab Gulf women, Saudi women still face an uphill struggle to gain political and social rights and need the consent of male guardians for almost everything, including obtaining a passport and travel.