Saudi Arabian women targeted with car adverts

Some of the world’s biggest car makers have started advertising their vehicles directly to women in Saudi Arabia.

The swift move follows the official announcement on 27 September by King Salman that the country’s ban on women drivers will end in June next year.

The decision has immediately created a potential new market of several million, very wealthy, potential car buyers. Among the firms using Twitter for their adverts are VW, Ford and Nissan.

According to the Bloomberg news agency, the biggest sellers of cars in the country are Toyota and Hyundai, whose SUVs (sports utility vehicles) are especially popular. Saudi Arabia has a population of 29 million, of whom about 20 millions are citizens.

The country’s wealth from decades as the world’s biggest oil producer means that some Saudi nationals are among the world’s richest people. The country’s ban on women obtaining a Saudi Arabian driving licence, or driving in the country, was unique.

The big change to that long-standing policy could pose a threat to the jobs of an estimated 800,000 or so foreign chauffeurs who are employed in the country to drive Saudi women.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman recently issued a decree allowing women to drive for the first time, to the joy of activists. The Gulf kingdom is the only country in the world that bans women from driving.

Until now, only men were allowed licences and women who drove in public risked being arrested and fined.

Praise for the move has been pouring in from inside Saudi Arabia, as well as around the world. US President Donald Trump said it was a “positive step” towards promoting women’s rights.

Campaigner Sahar Nassif told the BBC from Jeddah that she was “very, very excited – jumping up and down and laughing”.

“I’m going to buy my dream car, a convertible Mustang, and it’s going to be black and yellow!”

A ministerial body will be set up to give advice within 30 days, the royal order will be implemented by 24 June 2018.

The country’s US ambassador, Prince Khaled bin Salman, confirmed that women would not have to get male permission to take driving lessons, and would be able to drive anywhere they liked.

This decree is huge for Saudi Arabia. For decades now, Saudi women, many of whom are extremely well-educated and ambitious, have been waiting for their chance to participate fully in their country’s economy.

For all this time families have had to stretch their budgets to the limit, as they have had to hire in imported chauffeurs from south and south-east Asia, house them, feed them and insure them.

An estimated 800,000 foreign chauffeurs currently ferry Saudi women around. The reason it has taken so long is the long-standing opposition from religious conservatives, who have expressed views varying from “they are too stupid to drive” to “it will lead to intolerable mingling of the sexes”.

Yet this decree is in line with a programme called Vision 2030, promoted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to modernise Saudi society and bring it more into line with the rest of the world.