The first female Palestinian taxi driver in the Gaza Strip, Nayla Abu Jubbah, 39, sits at her vehicle as she works in Gaza City.
In the impoverished Palestinian territory, women have the same legal rights as men to drive a vehicle, but in practice the trade of taxi driver has been exclusively male – until now. After slotting her smartphone into its holder and giving a toot on the horn for show, she starts the engine and is off on the roads of Gaza, where the Islamist Hamas movement has ruled for more than 13 years.“I leave my home and I will pick up my clients, to bring them for example from the hairdressing salon to a wedding,” she says.“I said to myself one day that I needed to take advantage of the car, to put it to work,” she said.
“We live in a conservative society. So when I saw that there was a taxi company especially for women… I felt a kind of freedom”, says Saleem.“When I’m with a woman, I feel comfortable… I feel freer and then we can talk,” she says, adding that women’s taxi services are in line with sharia, the Islamic code which Hamas promotes in the Gaza Strip.Abu Jubbah says she wants to expand her business.
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