Meet the Saudi woman who fought for women’s right to drive

For nearly 30 years, women in Saudi Arabia have been jailed, harassed and threatened — all for demanding the right to drive.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s historic decree allowing women to take the wheel starting in June 2018 brings to a close a human rights campaign led by one fearless activist.

Six years ago, Manal al-Sharif, 38, made history when she filmed herself driving and posted the video to YouTube. She was arrested and spent nine days in a jail cell.

Her stunt was part of a movement called “Women2Drive,” which al-Sharif founded along with other Saudi women in hopes of ending the sexist religious ban.

The group organized a drive on June 17, 2011, following al-Sharif’s arrest, but no women were detained on that day.

“Women campaigning to end this ban have lost their freedom,” she wrote. “They have been called every deteriorating name and viciously attacked. They have lost their lives for daring to drive on the streets of Saudi Arabia.”

The computer scientist-turned-activist and author has always believed in standing up for women’s rights.

“When I see something wrong, I speak up,” she told NPR. “It should be the norm, not the exception.”

Al-Sharif was born in 1979 and became indoctrinated at an early age.

“I was brought up to follow the rules and listen to men,” she said.

Her first brush with the patriarchal society’s brutal laws was being genitally mutilated by a barber friend of her father’s when she was just a girl.

“It was shocking to me that a mother and a father can put their own daughters through so much pain just to abide by the society rules,” she said.

The brave activist started to question her upbringing as a computer science student at King Abdulaziz University in the ’90s. The first song she ever listened to was “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely” by the Backstreet Boys when she was 20.

In 2009, while working as an IT security consultant for oil company Saudi Aramco, she was sent to Boston and got her first driver’s license at 30, but when she returned home, that freedom was taken away.

Al-Sharif dared to drive because she was tired of the harassment she faced while trying to find a man to take her to and from work and doctors’ appointments.

In Wednesday’s post on her website, al-Sharif, now living in Australia, wrote: “Sept. 26th, 2017 marks the date we end one of the most draconian laws in modern history,” but warned that women’s rights activists would continue their work to abolish “the male guardianship imposed on them.”

“We ask for nothing short of full equality for women,” she wrote. “The rain begins with a single drop.”