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Saudi Arabian women are at last finding space on the driver's seat of councils - the religion still bars them from driving a car.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi women on the ultra-conservative kingdom's top advisory council have called for a discussion on the sensitive issue of allowing women to drive, a move that could embolden reformers pushing to lift the ban.
The official request was made this week to the head of the Shura Council, council member Latifa al-Shaalan said, to address all "excuses" raised to keep women from driving since Islamic law and Saudi traffic laws do not forbid it.
NO LICENCE FOR WOMEN
Women seeking the right to drive in Saudi Arabia have been energised by a campaign calling on them to drive on October 26. Saudi law does not explicitly prohibit them from driving but religious edicts by senior and influential clerics are enforced by the police, effectively banning it.
The authorities do not issue driving licences to women.
The campaign started as an online petition last month and has so far garnered nearly 15 000 signatures.
In 2011 a Saudi woman was detained for posting an online video of herself driving, though her arrest launched wider protests.
The country is guided by an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism. Women cannot travel, work, study abroad, marry, get divorced or gain admittance to a public hospital without permission from a male guardian - typically a husband, brother, father or uncle.
Hard-line clerics have opposed the driving campaign and recently a prominent Saudi cleric caused a stir when he said medical studies showed that driving has adverse effects on women's ovaries because it forces the pelvis upward.
Al-Shaalan, the Shura Council member, told journalists that the recommendation for the discussion on women driving was not meant to coincide with the campaign and that it had been studied for a while.
"It is flawed that a woman cannot drive a car after reaching the position of deputy minister, becoming a member of the Shura Council, managing a university and representing the country on international bodies," she said.
NO LEGISLATIVE POWERS
She said it was also counter-intuitive to force a woman to ride in a car with a male driver who may be a stranger because it contradicts the kingdom's strict rules on separation of the sexes.
While the Shura Council does not have legislative powers, the 30 women council members made history in 2013 when they became the first females appointed to the body. The move by King Abdullah to give women a voice on the body was seen as part of a larger reform effort by the monarchy.
In 2011 King Abdullah said women could vote and run as candidates in the 2015 municipal elections. In 2012 the kingdom began enforcing a law that allows women to work in female apparel and lingerie stores.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi women on the ultra-conservative kingdom's top advisory council have called for a discussion on the sensitive issue of allowing women to drive, a move that could embolden reformers pushing to lift the ban.
The official request was made this week to the head of the Shura Council, council member Latifa al-Shaalan said, to address all "excuses" raised to keep women from driving since Islamic law and Saudi traffic laws do not forbid it.
NO LICENCE FOR WOMEN
Women seeking the right to drive in Saudi Arabia have been energised by a campaign calling on them to drive on October 26. Saudi law does not explicitly prohibit them from driving but religious edicts by senior and influential clerics are enforced by the police, effectively banning it.
The authorities do not issue driving licences to women.
The campaign started as an online petition last month and has so far garnered nearly 15 000 signatures.
In 2011 a Saudi woman was detained for posting an online video of herself driving, though her arrest launched wider protests.
The country is guided by an ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism. Women cannot travel, work, study abroad, marry, get divorced or gain admittance to a public hospital without permission from a male guardian - typically a husband, brother, father or uncle.
Hard-line clerics have opposed the driving campaign and recently a prominent Saudi cleric caused a stir when he said medical studies showed that driving has adverse effects on women's ovaries because it forces the pelvis upward.
Al-Shaalan, the Shura Council member, told journalists that the recommendation for the discussion on women driving was not meant to coincide with the campaign and that it had been studied for a while.
"It is flawed that a woman cannot drive a car after reaching the position of deputy minister, becoming a member of the Shura Council, managing a university and representing the country on international bodies," she said.
NO LEGISLATIVE POWERS
She said it was also counter-intuitive to force a woman to ride in a car with a male driver who may be a stranger because it contradicts the kingdom's strict rules on separation of the sexes.
While the Shura Council does not have legislative powers, the 30 women council members made history in 2013 when they became the first females appointed to the body. The move by King Abdullah to give women a voice on the body was seen as part of a larger reform effort by the monarchy.
In 2011 King Abdullah said women could vote and run as candidates in the 2015 municipal elections. In 2012 the kingdom began enforcing a law that allows women to work in female apparel and lingerie stores.
