Several married working women have demanded visas to recruit personal drivers and domestic workers. At present this facility is only for divorced women and widows. Married working women claim they have been deprived of the right for no justifiable reason. They too, they say, are in need of domestic workers. Nuha Awad, a married working woman, said there are families who have members in different levels of education. Besides, the family has a working woman and thus there is a desperate need for a second driver in the family, she said. Muna Muhammad, another working mother, said the family has one driver who takes care of the groceries, drives children to schools and her to work, and also serves her in-laws. “We always have problems with him because of the too many work tasks. This, sometimes, forces us to hire taxis. We are also in constant fear that he may leave the job because of the amount of work he has to do.” Laila Hasan said work pressure on her driver would eventually force him to run away. “If married women were allowed to recruit drivers by themselves then several problems would be resolved,” she said. Osama Kordi, Shoura Council member, said statistics show that work for women is now a necessity because a woman would be either supporting herself or others in the family. The need to work is linked to her need for transportation, so the matter of issuing driver visas for married working women just like other social categories must be looked at realistically. Majed Al-Haqqas, member of the Recruitment Committee at Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, suggested that a working woman, whether married or not, be granted a visa for recruiting a driver on the condition she proves she is working and her parents, or husband, have no objections. Dr. Suzan Al-Qurashi, professor at the Faculty of Economics and Management at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz University, said it is important for a working woman to have a driver, especially if she belongs to a large family and can afford a driver's salary. __
