First female drivers in Egypt’s metro train

In 1987, the metro train in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, was the first metro service in the Arab world, but for the first time in 35 years, female train drivers are being recruited.

The Cairo Metro train now serves a population of around two million, so the management has decided to hire women as drivers for the first time.

This is an entirely new practice in a country where only a few women hold professional jobs.

According to the first two female drivers, since April this year, passengers have been reacting differently to seeing them taking control of the train driver’s cabin.

Some of them raise their eyebrows and some disapprove.

Egyptian women have had the right to vote and run for office since 1956, but patriarchal laws and culturally male dominance have limited their personal rights.

Cairo metro trains also have special compartments for women who wish not to travel with men to avoid being sexually harassed.

Hind Umar, a business graduate and mother of two, says she had to rush to apply to become a train driver because she wanted to be a pioneer in a country where, according to 2020 data, only 14.3 percent of women are in formal professions. are working

30-year-old Hind Umar said that thousands of lives are in his hands every day. He proudly wore a bright Cairo Metro-branded coat and a black and white headscarf.

Hadan Umar admits that he is lucky to have the support of his family. ‘At first my parents found it strange but eventually they supported me.

‘My husband was enthusiastic from the start and always encouraged me.’

He said that the main factor was to exempt women drivers from night shift.

Hind Umar said that the test phase for female driver candidates was particularly tough in which the candidates were asked to demonstrate their ‘attention span’ and ‘endurance’.

Drivers, he says, ‘have to be hyper-vigilant for many hours’ while working six days a week.

Suzanne Muhammad, 32, another woman selected for the train driver training program with Hind Umar, recalled the moment when passengers first saw her in the driver’s cabin.

“I could understand ‘they were surprised’ being in a country where women are restricted in many areas.”

He said that some passengers were scared. They doubted my abilities and said they didn’t feel safe when a woman was in control.’

The Cairo Metro Train, which began service in 1987, is the oldest metro service in the Arab world, but it has lagged behind other Arab countries in providing employment opportunities for women.

In 1999, Sadia Abd Africa from Morocco became the first female train driver in the Arab world.

Even in Saudi Arabia, where women were banned from driving until recently, the first group of female train drivers is in the process of training.

Cairo Metro Train plans to lay three more tracks and become Egypt’s first monorail system.

Hind Umar therefore hopes that her example will ‘pave the way for other women’ to become train drivers and ‘there will be many more women like us here’.