The Right for women to drive

Loujain AlHathloul is one of the most prominent Saudi activists and leaders of the Women to Drive Campaign

Loujain AlHathloul was one of the leading voices of the Saudi Women to Drive Campaign (specifically the 26 Oct campaign). In 2013, a group of activists, including Loujain, decided to stage a protest drive in order to show their support for ending the ban on women driving. The event took place on October 26th of that year. The Saudi government opposed the campaign from the beginning. Their website was blocked within the country and members of the interior ministry reached out to the leaders of the campaign, telling them not to participate. Nevertheless the protest went ahead.

Loujain was living in Canada at that time, she booked a flight to Saudi Arabia for the occasion. Loujain drove and was filmed by her father. Loujain encouraged other women to do so on her different social platforms, including uploading short Keek videos.

Loujain did not get arrested for driving in 2013, but her father had to sign an agreement promising she won’t drive under his guardianship. In 2014, while she was living in the UAE, Loujain continued her campaign for the right of Saudi women to drive. In December 2014, Loujain publicly stated that she will try to cross the UAE-Saudi border, emphasising the fact that were no laws forbidding women to drive into Saudi Arabia, and that with her UAE licence she should be allowed to cross the border and to drive in her own country.

She filmed herself driving and tried to cross the border. At the border, she was stopped. Hours later, she was arrested and put in prison for 73 days. For more information about the arrest, please click here.

End Male Guardianship

In Saudi Arabia, women are under the guardianship of a man until the end of their lives. Every important decision has to be approved by a man. Loujain started a campaign to end male guardianship.

After her attempt to cross the Saudi border by car in 2014, Loujain spent 73 days in prison, but in what is called a “care home” or “Dar al Reaya”. These detention facilities — prisons in all but name — are for young women or for women who are formally disowned by their male guardians, often for minor infractions.

Reasons for being sent there include oquq (disobeying parents) and disappearance (leaving the house without the consent of the male guardian). The government describes people sent there as "delinquents."

Loujain spent 73 days with these women, and realised freedom is not only about being allowed to drive, but to end the male guardianship system which allows men to lock down their wives and daughters.

She therefore broadened her activism to end the whole guardianship system in Saudi Arabia and strengthen the feminist movement of Saudi Arabia.

Since 2014, the Saudi feminist movement has been publicly engaged in raising awareness, popularising human rights concepts in general, beyond equality for women and men. It is the most organised and articulate civil society in Saudi Arabia, rapidly becoming "the regime's nightmare." Observers believe that the fear of this uncontrolled spread of human rights was the reason for the 2018–2019 crackdown on feminists.

Loujain was one of the leaders in the movement, reshaping the process of mass, collective consciousness-raising and developing a fully articulated understanding of women’s varying social positions. She was a main voice in the movements “Together We Stand to End Male Guardianship of Women” and “Women Demand the Overthrow of Guardianship” raising awareness online by sharing information.

In July 2016, alongside other Saudi activists, Loujain organised a campaign calling for an end to the country's male guardianship system by sending telegrams and a petition to King Salman. The petition collected more than 14,000 signatures. Human Rights Watch described the 2016 wave of activism as “incredible and unprecedented”

“Amnah”, the shelter to protect abused women

In Saudi Arabia, women who are victims of domestic violence have no where safe to go to. Loujain and her fellow activists were in the process of opening a safe shelter for women victims of domestic violence.

Civil Rights

election and political representation

In Saudi Arabia, women were first allowed to vote and be elected in 2015 (Municipal elections).

Loujain was one of the first women to stand for election in Saudi Arabia in November 2015 – the first time women were allowed to both vote and stand in elections in the state. However, despite finally being recognized as a candidate, her name was never added to the ballot.

“I’ve been eliminated as a candidate for the municipal elections,” Loujain said in a message on Twitter. “I will be filing my objection via the appropriate channels.”

Loujain told Agence France-Presse that she wanted to run “to increase the percentage of women’s participation”.

Civil Rights

International Conferences

Loujain was one of the only independant Saudi woman voice to speak about the Human Rights situation in international conferences. Loujain believes in the importance of debates and of the participation of civil society. With her engagement, discussions and structural questioning, Loujain was reshaping the process of mass, collective consciousness-raising and developing a fully articulated understanding of women’s varying social positions.

On 27 February 2018, Loujain attended a public meeting in Geneva to brief members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on the human rights situation of women in Saudi Arabia. Her briefing formed part of the Committee's review of Saudi Arabia's implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. At the conference, Loujain was filming the official Saudi delegation and posting counter arguments with fact-checking that she was posting live.

Before the conference, Loujain was pressured into not attending it, but she believed it was her duty to represent the voiceless in the country. Loujain has done this at great cost to herself and her well-being. In fact, A few weeks later, on 15 May 2018, she was arrested in Saudi Arabia on national security grounds and has been in detention ever since. According to the charges, her arrest was partly based on her engagement with CEDAW.