When Manal Al Sharif got behind the wheel of a car in her home country of Saudi Arabia in 2011, she almost immediately became a focal point for women’s rights in the Kingdom.
Arrested as a result of her actions, which were part of a campaign to call for women’s rights to drive, Al Sharif was been applauded across the globe, and has since brought international attention to a number of women’s rights issues including the murder of five-year-old Lama Al Ghamdi by her father in 2013, and the plight of female domestic workers held in Saudi prisons.
Dubbed Saudi Arabia’s Rosa Parks, Al Sharif was honoured last year at a Women In The World luncheon in California, where she told an audience “To me, if you see something wrong, you have to speak up… If we keep quiet, nothing will change.”
