Deeply conservative and patriarchal Saudi Arabia has become the last country to allow women to drive. Human rights organisation Amnesty International has rightly hailed the breakthrough as testimony to the bravery of female activists who have been campaigning for years. The world may seem like a better place for it. But the decree issued by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz ­al-Saud authorising the issuance of driving licences to women from June is not a fait accompli, and activists have not welcomed it unequivocally.

To make putting them behind the wheel really effective, Saudi women have called on the government to also scrap the guardianship law that gives men power over female relatives. Otherwise, they fear, women would still need permission from male relatives to apply for a licence, as they do to obtain a passport.

Saudi Arabia still has some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women under the country’s guardianship system. A male family member, normally the father, husband or brother, must grant permission for study, travel, opening a bank account and other activities. The recent relaxation of perhaps the most egregious requirement – male permission to visit the doctor – marks the increasing loosening of social restrictions under a reform push to adapt to a post-oil era and repair a dismal human rights record.