Pink Taxi: Egypt’s first all-women taxi service

A new company in Egypt is making waves offering a taxi service only for women.

Pink Taxi, hires only women drivers and gives rides to only female passengers. The idea is to combat sexual harassment by providing a safe method of transportation for women in a country with high rates of sexual abuse.

Sexual harassment is a major problem in Egypt. According to a study conducted by the UN “Women back in 2013, 99.3 per cent of Egyptian women confirmed that they were victims of sexual harassment, ” Egyptianstreets reports. Among the respondents, 82.6 per cent said they do not feel safe leaving their homes.

The Pink Taxi initiative, created solely for women with women drivers aims to fight this problem.

Pink Taxi founder Reem Fawzy, said “any new idea takes its cue from society, and we need a transport service for Egyptian women. Not only for them, in fact: for all Arab women and foreigners — women in general, ” Euronews reported.

The drivers receive training for the job and they are required to have a college degree and be fluent in English or a second language apart from Arabic. The cars have a pink logo and drivers wear pink uniforms and even pink nail polish.

While the idea of an all-female taxi service has been well received, it appears others are not entirely convinced, questioning whether the service will not perpetuate the alienation of women or if “segregation” can curb sexual harassment.

Others have also questioned: is “keeping women away from men the answer to resolve this major societal issue?”

Source: ahram