DHAHRAN: On June 24, when Saudi women are allowed to drive for the first time, Amira Abdulgader wants to be sitting at the wheel, the one in control, giving a ride to her mother beside her. “Sitting behind the wheel [means] that you are the one controlling the trip,” said the architect, dressed in a black veil, who has just finished learning to drive.

Abdulgader is one of about 200 women at the state oil firm Aramco taking advantage of a company offer to teach female employees and their families at its driving academy in Dhahran to support the social revolution sweeping the kingdom.

Women make up about five per cent of Aramco’s 66,000 staff, meaning that 3,000 more could eventually enrol in the driving school.

Last September, King Salman decreed an end to the world’s only ban on women drivers, maintained for decades by Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative Muslim establishment.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2018