Women in Saudi Arabia have been granted the right to drive, overturning a cornerstone of Saudi conservatism that had been a cause celebre for activists demanding reforms in the fundamentalist kingdom, Guardian reported.
The decision comes amid a broad reform program that last week led to women being allowed into a sports stadium for the first time.
It is the most significant change yet to a rigidly conservative social order in Saudi Arabia that has strictly demarcated gender roles, and severely limits the role of women in public life.
Saudi Arabia had been the last country in the world in which women were banned from driving – a fact that was frequently used by critics as proof that female citizens of the kingdom were among the world’s most repressed.
LR/PR
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