Saudi women ‘still enslaved’ despite end of driving ban, says activist
‘While people are celebrating ... the people who fought for lifting this ban are in jail,’ says activist Manal al-Sharif
Women are still “enslaved” through Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, an activist from the conservative Muslim kingdom said on Friday as the country prepared to lift a decades-old ban on women driving.
Manal al-Sharif hit world headlines in 2011 when she was jailed for videoing herself driving in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world at the time with a ban on women getting behind the wheel.
The ban was seen as an emblem of the Muslim kingdom’s repression of women, and the decision to lift it has been hailed by some as proof of a new progressive trend under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
But for al-Sharif, the fight is far from over because women in Saudi Arabia still live under the supervision of a male guardian whose permission they need to marry or travel abroad.
“Imagine your son becomes your guardian,” she said. “No matter my capabilities as a woman, I am still enslaved to somebody else. Freedom for me is to live with dignity, and if my dignity and freedom is controlled by a man, I will never be free.”