Women on Wheels: Taxi Sisters
Not every woman on wheels is racecar driver, biker chick, or automotive executive. Sometimes a woman on wheels is the woman who drives your cab. For this week’s Women on Wheels, we introduce you to a pioneering group of women cabbies…in Senegal.
It’s a common misconception that the ban on women drivers in conservative, presominantly Muslim countries is because of religious law, but last month, a new program launched in Senegal proved that to be a fallacy. How? Well they’ve started a new program called “Taxi Sister,” which was inspired by President Abdoulaye Wayde.
Taxi-Sister, which is regarded as the first such program to be offered in any country with a 95% Muslim population, was the result of a deal between a local car retailer, and a government fund to help female entrepreneurs get their starts.
According to Senegalese local paper Le Soleil, the First Lady Vivian Wade presented the ten brand new cars to their new drivers, the first of what will ultimately be 2,000 female taxi drivers by 2008. The women have been put through martial arts training in preparation for any difficult clients, and will only work during daylight hours (7 AM - 7PM local time), to ensure their safety. They will also wear an official uniform of yellow shirts and red pants, making them easy to spot in any crowd.
The cars will be supplied by Espace-Auto. Their managing director, Serigne Mboup, told Le Soleil, “”(Male-female) parity should not be just a slogan, it must be applied in the economic sphere. Women must go on to attack male-dominated professions,”
And what do the actual drivers think? Sophie Diouck, one of the first Taxi Sisters, told reporters, “”The task will be difficult in the sense that we are young women. But we will give it our best to rise to the challenges.”
October 28th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
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