Erbil Women's Driving Ambition

Two weeks of instruction were enough to secure a driving license for Wafa Sardar - but they did little to overcome her terror of parking and overtaking.

In her first month behind a steering wheel, the 23-year-old university student from Erbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, would return the car only as far as the gates of her house. Then she would pass the keys to one of her brothers, who would manoeuvre it to its parking spot in the driveway.

“I was embarrassed every day,” she said.

But two years on, Sardar is a part of a confident new breed of women drivers, surging impatiently along Erbil’s highways.

She parks easily and the heavy traffic she once regarded with fear is now just a source of frustration. She overtakes as often as she can to compensate for her early timidity.

“It’s become an obsession. I’m a real Jackie Chan in the car,” she said, referring to the Hong Kong stuntman whose action films are popular throughout the region.

For decades, women drivers were a rarity in Erbil. Now they are conspicuous – a startling by-product of furious economic growth as well as subtle signs of changes in male-dominated society.

Over the last five years, the number of women acquiring driving licenses in Erbil province has almost doubled. Of the 10,000 licenses granted in 2005, roughly 2,000 were for women. So far this year, Erbil has issued nearly 4,000 licenses for women.

The overall number of women drivers in the province remains low – only five per cent out of a total of nearly 340,000. But in the capital, a city of one million people where the majority of the new licenses have been granted, the shift has been striking.

Erbil’s parks, bazaars and pavements remain an overwhelmingly male environment, in keeping with the conservative, patriarchal values of Iraqi Kurdish society.

So admirers of modernity gasp at the sight of women drivers cutting across both roads and gender roles. Taxi drivers groan as they cut off other traffic.

“They don’t know how to drive,” said Hiwa Najm, who operates a taxi in Erbil. “They only look ahead. I don’t know how they get their licenses.”

He said his taxi was struck by another vehicle three days ago, “Even before I got out of the car, I was sure it was a woman [who had hit me]. It was her fault.”

Aram Ameen, the manager of a driving school in Erbil, insisted women drivers were instinctively more cautious, adding, “Men are careless. Women follow instructions. This is down to the nature of Middle Eastern society and women’s fear of punishment.”

Kunda Mohammed, a civil servant who has been driving for four years, confirmed she faced harassment from male drivers. “Youngsters tend to be the worst,” she said, adding that she enjoyed driving despite the unwanted attention.

Residents of Erbil believe the advent of women drivers is linked to rising prosperity. While much of Iraq has spent the last decade at war, Erbil has been a boomtown.

Kurdistan’s relative security and the lure of untapped mineral reserves have attracted foreign investment. The region’s capital has sprawled outwards, incorporating glossy new shopping malls, hotels and housing developments – all linked by vast multi-lane highways. As public transport remains patchy, cars have become an attractive alternative for those who can afford them.

“I bought a car for my eldest daughter a year ago to spare her from having to wait in crowds for buses or taxis,” said Mohammed Ameen, an Erbil businessman. “I was concerned at first but I changed my mind when I saw she was a good driver.”

“Moreover, I know the security situation is stable here. There is no problem with women driving cars,” he said, pointing out that owning a car did not entitle his daughter to stay out late without informing her parents first.

Many of the new generation of women drivers are from the middle and upper classes. They receive their vehicles as gifts when they enter college or start new jobs.

Their parents often see the car as a way of protecting their children’s privacy while allowing them greater mobility. The latter tend to see the car as a status symbol.

“If it had not been for the social competition, I would have not bought the car,” said university student Sardar.

Another student, Shirin Kareem, said her new car was both “a necessity” as well as a way of keeping up with her friends.

Befrin Sultan, an education student, said her parents’ decision to give her a car indicated a cultural shift. “Most parents are starting to think in a more civilised way,” she said. “I have absolute freedom to go out and meet my friends wherever I want.”

But unlike their contemporaries in the West, the youth of Erbil do not see their cars as an opportunity for romance. Dating is frowned upon in Kurdish society and few unmarried young people are willing to risk the scandal of being seen in public with a member of the opposite sex.

For most Kurdish women, the car symbolises luxury and convenience rather than liberation. Owning a vehicle – itself a reflection of prosperity – has given women and their families a chance to become wealthier, by making it easier for them to do several jobs.

“I have two jobs – one in the public sector and another in the private sector,” said Sheema Molood. “I had to have a car in order to be able to move around. I lost out when I had to use taxis.”

Mofaq Mohammed is an IWPR-trained journalist in Erbil.