ASSOCIATED PRESS: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Roads in Saudi Arabia are among the world's most dangerous but one type of victim stands out: female teachers who are dying at alarming rates because of long commutes through the desert to reach remote schools.
The Saudi government appoints teachers to work in villages where local staff cannot fill all vacancies. But unlike their male counterparts, female teachers in this conservative Muslim country have difficulty living alone in the villages, forcing them to commute each day.
Nof al-Oneizi was so worried she would die that she wrote to education officials urging them to find her a school nearer to her home in the northern town of Jouf, rather than the one she was assigned to 108 miles away — a three-hour drive because of the bad roads. Since women are forbidden to drive, she carpooled in a van with a driver along with several other female teachers.
Her fears came true before a solution to her problem could be found: The 28-year-old English language teacher died in a horrific crash last November. Five other female teachers, their driver and four people in the car they hit also were killed.
"We were devastated," said Suad Amri, al-Oneizi's aunt. "I still have her school papers, all splattered with blood. Her mom can't look at them. She can't absorb what has happened to her daughter."
Nearly 6,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2007 in this country of 27.6 million, according to the Saudi Traffic Department. That is a rate of about 21 deaths per 100,000 people — one of the highest in the world. By comparison, around 14 per 100,000 people died in road accidents in the United States in 2006. Female Teachers Dying on the Roads in Saudi Arabia >>> By Donna Abu-Nasr | May 1, 2008
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