Cairo women ride in peace with first female bus driver
New driver Umm Abdalla's all-female passengers can breathe easy as she navigates her full-size bus through Giza traffic.
The sight of a niqab-clad woman driving a full-size bus in Cairo’s congested streets during rush hour has left commuters and pedestrians in the Giza district open-mouthed. But Umm Abdalla, Egypt’s first female bus driver, is unfazed by the stares of curious onlookers.
“People stare anyway, no matter what you are wearing or what you do. Some are nosy by nature, others are simply curious. I just take it in stride,” she told Al-Monitor.
The 42-year-old widow and mother of five said she never intended to become a bus driver.
“It happened because I was desperate for a job and they were recruiting,” she said. “They” are the private English Mass Transit Company that hired her a little over a month ago. The company, contracted by Cairo’s Transport Authority (CTA) to operate buses within the CTA, had advertised openings for bus drivers in a local newspaper. By chance, the English Mass Transit Company recently introduced a female-only bus service to protect women from sexual harassment, a rampant problem in Cairo.
