On July 14th, Uber unveiled a new feature in Saudi Arabia: a “female drivers for female passengers” service, representing a major milestone in Uber’s adjustment to local markets. Launched at an event called “By Women, For Women” in Riyadh, the initiative was presented as a move toward empowering Saudi women through mobility.
But while this move might seem progressive on the surface, it also reveals deeper social constraints still in place in Saudi life, especially for women. With Saudi Arabia set to host the FIFA World Cup in 2034, steps like these should invite serious ethical analysis.
Are we seeing genuine social reform, or just a strategic move to whitewash the kingdom’s image ahead of an international stage? Let’s be explicit here: this is not freedom. It’s segregated empowerment, re-packaged control that highlights the reason Saudi Arabia is not worthy of hosting the FIFA World Cup.
A Deeper Dive into Uber’s “By Women, For Women” Initiative
Uber announced its new feature to enable female riders to request female drivers, either on demand or in advance. The launch comes on the seventh anniversary of Saudi Arabia’s announcement in 2018 to permit women to drive, which, while celebrated abroad, merely touched the surface of more profound structural gender disparities.
Uber’s Saudi Arabian General Manager, Youssef Abu Saif, commended the service by saying, “Women all over Saudi Arabia have demonstrated how mobility can unlock new horizons of opportunity.” But facts are stubborn: mobility in Saudi Arabia remains strongly conditioned by gender controls.
In contrast to Western nations, where ride-hailing is all about safety and convenience, this new Saudi Arabian service is a response to public pressure to segregate the sexes in public life. Uber’s action is less about liberation and more about meeting cultural expectations based on patriarchal control.
Gender Segregation Is Still Law, Not Choice
Whereas Western audiences might understand this new service as a victory for women’s independence, it sustains structural segregation.
For forty years, Saudi Arabia imposed a rigid guardianship regime under which women were not allowed to leave the country, get an education, or get married without a male’s consent. While recent reforms have eased some of these prohibitions, gender segregation remains the norm in schools, restaurants, public transportation, and even offices.
The Uber service is an expression—not a refutation—of this fact. It is designed to accommodate a system in which women are required to stay away from unrelated men, further solidifying a segregated society in which membership is provisional.
Organizing the FIFA World Cup should entail more than showy reform and economic motivation. It should call for global values of equality, openness, and freedom of expression—values which are simply at odds with Saudi Arabia’s existing human rights code.
Human Rights: A Record That Cannot Be Ignored
Saudi Arabia has invested the past decade in lavishing billions of dollars on image-improvement schemes, “sportswashing” in an attempt to divert attention from its human rights reputation. The FIFA 2034 bid is its largest effort to date. But the world cannot forget:
- Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist for The Washington Post, was brutally murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The CIA concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely approved the operation.
- According to Human Rights Watch, dozens of women’s rights activists have been detained, tortured, or placed under strict travel bans for advocating basic freedoms.
- Freedom House, in its 2024 report, graded Saudi Arabia “Not Free,” with only a score of 7 out of 100 in total freedoms.
- Same-sex relationships, apostasy, and opposition to the monarchy are still punishable by imprisonment or death.
The notion that such a country could host an event intended to celebrate international diversity and unity is not only paradoxical — it’s insulting.
The Role of Corporate Complicity
Uber’s announcement also needs to be seen through the prism of corporate ethics. Although the company declares this new initiative as empowering, it does this by both legitimizing and conforming to oppressive norms instead of challenging them.
This isn’t the first time multinationals have dialed back their commitment to human rights to get into the Saudi market. Businesses in various industries — tourism, entertainment, technology — have welcomed Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan to diversify the economy, usually at the expense of their own stated values.
The 2023 Uber Economic Impact Report in Saudi Arabia boldly declared that the company injected SAR 1.1 billion ($293 million) into the national economy. That figure is expected to increase because Statista estimates the ride-hailing market in Saudi Arabia will be worth $953 million by 2025. Economic growth must not be allowed to serve as a veil for systemic repression.
FIFA: Stop Rewarding Repression
FIFA asserts that its goal is to advance values like respect, fair play, and inclusion. However, giving the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia would be in glaring conflict with those values.
Already, numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have sounded the alarm on this move, urging transparent human rights criteria to be linked to hosting obligations. To date, no such binding standards have been established, and that is the loophole that Saudi Arabia is taking advantage of.
If Saudi Arabia can lavish billions on hosting global events when its citizens — particularly women, minorities, and dissidents — are muffled and monitored, then FIFA is not merely turning a blind eye. It is actively supporting repression.
The Uber news — while presented as a cause for female empowerment — is a hard reminder of how much further Saudi Arabia has yet to move towards the reality of giving equal rights to all its citizens.
It’s a move in an extended game of rebranding authoritarianism, and FIFA is unwillingly, if unwittingly, becoming a giant piece on this board. Let us not let the 2034 FIFA World Cup be a prize for authoritarian image manipulation.
Take a Stand: Call on FIFA to Withdraw Saudi Arabia’s 2034 Hosting Rights
Raise your voice. Pass this message on. Pressure your national football associations, sponsors, and FIFA representatives to boycott Saudi Arabia as a host nation until meaningful human rights reforms have been introduced. It is a privilege to host the World Cup — not a PR exercise. Let’s not use sport as a shield for oppression.