Saudi Women Drivers Had a Long and Painful Journey

This timeline shows how it's taken almost three decades of campaigning and risks to get behind a wheel.

A woman drives a car in Riyadh, as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban, in March 2014. — A woman drives a car in Riyadh, as part of a campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban, in March 2014.
Photographer: Hasan Jamali/AP Photos

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By Donna Abu-Nasr

September 27, 2017 at 11:52 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

King Salman’s decision to allow women to drive marks the end of a long and arduous journey for scores of Saudi female drivers who faced arrest, harassment, slander and loss of jobs to get behind the wheel.

The first major campaign by Saudi women to drive took place almost 27 years ago, as U.S. troops were massing in the kingdom in preparation for expelling Iraqi soldiers that had invaded Kuwait. The women believed the presence of major international news outlets would guarantee their message would get out and the Saudi government would be reticent to crack down on them with the world watching. They were mistaken.