Iraqi Women Seek Freedom of the Road Again

By Mary Beth Sheridan

BAGHDAD -- The black-masked militias have vanished from most Baghdad streets, and the car bombings are down to one or two a day. So one recent afternoon, Hadeel Ahmed, a ponytailed college student in jeans, did something few Iraqi women have dared recently. She drove a car.

"It bothers me to have to depend on my brother or father to take me everywhere," the 25-year-old student declared, after finishing a class at al-Riyadh Driving School. "I want to be independent."

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, women in the Iraqi capital have virtually disappeared from behind the wheel. With gun battles raging, the police force collapsing and the traffic lights dead, highways turned into a Mad Max world. Even today, you can travel for a half-hour across the sprawling city and not see a single woman driving.

But with the sharp drop in violence this year, women are venturing onto the roads. They are gingerly reclaiming freedoms denied by the Islamic extremists who warned them to stop driving, give up makeup and cover their hair -- or risk death.

Source: [Washington Post]

Ahmed is one of those who has taken advantage of the waning presence of the militias to abandon her head scarf and long skirts and get behind the wheel. "Driving means someone is brave," she said. "They're strong. Not only in their body but in their spirit."

While there are few statistics to document the rise in women on the road -- driver's licenses haven't been issued since the 2003 invasion -- it is evident at schools like al-Riyadh. Manager Sabah Kadhim said 29 of his 50 students are women, a 70 percent increase compared with recent years. The Iraqi Automobile and Tourism Association reported that 123 people signed up for driving lessons in November, most of them women.

"Women used to be everywhere driving their cars. Then we saw a backslide," said Safia al-Souheil, a member of parliament and women's rights activist. "Today is much better."

Unlike in Saudi Arabia, women in Iraq face no legal barriers to driving. For decades, Iraq was one of the most secular countries in the Middle East, with women going to college, competing in sports and enjoying legal protections in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

But as the country slid into chaos, death squads and kidnappers began prowling the streets. Islamic extremists threw acid in the faces of women who went out unveiled.

"Even if we had learned to drive, it wouldn't have mattered. You would have had to stay at home," said Sabah Salman, 24, a college student in an exuberant yellow head scarf, green polka-dot jacket and long black skirt, sitting next to Ahmed, her cousin, in al-Riyadh's reception area.

Women weren't the only ones affected by the violence. But, in this patriarchal society, they were seen as more vulnerable, especially since many men started carrying weapons. To get around, many women had to resort to taxis, buses or rides from husbands or male relatives.

Salman said she longs to "jump in the car" and go shopping or visit friends. But driving is about more than convenience, she said.

"The country is developed now. It's a period of fast change," she said. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, she noted, Iraq has ceased to be cut off from the world. Its citizens have acquired satellite TV, cellphones, computers.

"If the country has Internet and technology, it's an old-fashioned thing -- a shameful thing -- that we don't know how to drive," she said. For a year, during the height of the bloodshed, her family had decamped to Syria. Salman saw women driving everywhere. "They have freedom," she explained. "This is our motivation."

As she spoke, four more people arrived for driving classes. "All of them are women -- look!" said Ahmed, gazing at the veiled students.

The cousins' driving lesson offered a glimpse of the obstacle course that Baghdad's motorists encounter. Ahmed slid behind the wheel of a red Daewoo subcompact, next to al-Riyadh's ace driving instructor, 71-year-old Ismail Kareem Ismail. She pulled out onto Palestine Street, a bustling six-lane commercial strip. Within a few blocks, the traffic was funneled through one of the many checkpoints maintained by the growing Iraqi police force.

"When you approach a checkpoint, put it in first gear," the driving instructor advised. Ahmed eased the car to a crawl. The young police officer, munching on a piece of flat bread, froze in mid-bite. "They're astonished when they see us -- a woman driving," Ahmed observed.

She turned onto a side street lined with dilapidated mansions and confronted a series of 12-foot-tall concrete barriers blocking most of the road, a common measure to deter speeding car bombers. "With the blast walls, you have to gauge the space," the instructor explained. Ahmed slowly guided the tiny car between the giant walls -- and stalled.

Many parts of Baghdad are walled off by such barriers, including the heart of the city, the six-square-mile Green Zone. With no working traffic lights, police frantically wave green or red lollipop-shaped signs to control intersections. Cars are forced to halt as U.S. military convoys or Iraqi police vehicles race past, topped by menacing-looking gunners.

Women in other Iraqi cities have been slower to return to the roads. Mona Saud, a women's activist in Basra, the country's second-largest city, said female drivers used to be common but are now rare. "Women in Basra still have the fear of being killed or kidnapped," she said.

Lt. Abdel Hassan Jawad, a spokesman for the Basra traffic police, said driving schools in the southern city remain closed. As for female drivers, he said, "I can count them on my fingers." One factor contributing to the rise in female driving students in Baghdad is a big raise for civil servants awarded in June. That has allowed Ashwa Mejid, 28, an employee of the state agricultural bank, to think about buying a car.

She was preparing for a lesson one recent day at a white concrete building whose exterior was gaily painted with traffic signs. "Al Fahed for Learning Art Driver and Technical," its sign proclaimed in bold if imperfect English. The school, in eastern Baghdad, has also had an increase in female drivers.

Mejid, in a bright blue head scarf, tunic and jeans, said her female colleagues at the bank were all talking about getting cars. Her parents were supportive, too. "Even the Iraqi army, when I am at the checkpoints, they encourage me. They say, 'You're a hero! You're brave!' " she gushed.

Sitting next to Mejid was one of her co-workers, Leila Muhaibis, 33, in a leopard-print head scarf. She was also taking driving lessons. But she appeared considerably less buoyant. "For me, it's different than for my friends. For them, this is about an ambition. For me, it's something I need," Muhaibis explained.

For three years, a blue Honda has been sitting, unused, in front of the home she shares with her elderly parents. It belongs to her brother. "He's in prison," she said. "The Americans grabbed him off the street."

That, at least, is what she had been told. But when she went to the U.S. military detention center at Camp Bucca, they had no record of her brother. "November 23, 2005," Muhaibis said, her eyes welling with tears. "We haven't seen him in three years."

At first, her father didn't want her to learn to drive, she said. He was safeguarding the blue Honda. "The car belongs to his only son. He was afraid something would happen to it," Muhaibis said. They waited and waited for her brother to return.

She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "Now things have changed."