‘Letting Saudi women behind wheels is like silencing them from main issues’

Moudhi al Jahoni claims that situation for women in Saudi Kingdom is still dire

After nearly three decades of campaigning, Saudi Arabian women were given the right to drive on September 26 this year. However, some activists say that the breakthrough has come with a price and that is their silence.

Women's rights activists, Moudhi al Jahoni, is also not very hopeful and claims that the situation for women is still dire in the Saudi kingdom.



Her own family locked up the 26-year-old Saudi woman when she returned from Florida during a college vacation. Angered by her independence, Johani’s father held her at home against her will for months, she told the New York Times earlier this year.

In 2016, she fled to the United States, where she has applied for asylum. She was among those who started an online campaign, #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen, which she claimed in April 2017 “has been trending for more than 230 days.”

She is now speaking out against the male guardian system that treats women as minors, despite receiving death threats using the hashtag #IAmMyOwnGuardian.

According to Jahoni, women in Saudi Arabia live a terrible life for many reasons which is why they are at the mercy of their male guardians.

“Lack of rights, lack of freedom, the whole patriarchy, the misogynistic society that always demonises women and thinks of them as second-class citizens,” said activist in a video on Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster.

Jahoni recalls in the video how even after landing in the US, she had to face a post-traumatic disorder for a long time. “I was scared; I was just imagining that people are going to break into my place; that they are going to take me back.”



“My family has been targeted and shamed. They suffered a lot of consequences because of me speaking up,” reveals Jahoni.

“Since I ran away from Saudi Arabia, I moved to three different states. I was receiving a lot of death threats and I had stalkers. People want me dead… people hate me talking. They think I am lying and corrupting women.”

Saudi women were allowed to vote for the first time in 2015 and this year, they have been allowed to drive once they are 18. The Gulf kingdom was the only country in the world to bar women from taking the wheel, a ban seen globally as a symbol of repression.

Many women fear they are still easy prey for conservatives in a nation where male “guardians” — typically their fathers, husbands or brothers — have arbitrary authority to take decisions on their behalf. Jahoni also thinks the same.

“It is not enough. This is just to try and silence women from the main issues,” continues Jahoni.

She stresses, “We need to abolish the guardianship system, we need to not criminalise women leaving the house and being independent. We need to not criminalise women for being a victim of sexual assault. These things are more important than just getting behind the wheels.”

“I have to succeed so I can help other women. Because if I don’t make it and if I fail, I don’t know who else can help them [Saudi women]," concludes Jahoni.

Watch her interview here:

Warning: Abusive language used, viewer discretion advised