Women taxi startups gaining speed globally

In Beirut, Lebanon, Micaela Varwicheand, a divorced mother of three, has an unusual job: She drives a bright, pink taxicab.

Varwiche, age 48, moved from Romania to Lebanon. She has been here 26 years as a wife, but she does not read or write Arabic. Driving a taxicab is her first job outside the home in Beirut. The pay is low and the hours are long. But Banet Taxi offers her something she has never had before: the hope of a bright future.

Launched in 2009, Banet Taxi has six or seven taxicabs. Business is good, but it could be better, she says. The company could use some help from the government. Banet is an example of new women-owned taxicab companies operating around the world.

Empowerment In Kurdistan

In Irbil, a city in the Kurdish part of Iraq, Lana Yako started and owns PNK Taxi by Women for Women. She says she at first had trouble registering with the government. But the paperwork was eventually completed in 2011. With three taxicabs and four women drivers, PNK Taxi plans to add more taxicabs. It plans to go to other cities in Kurdistan.

“Back when we started ... everyone was kind of shocked. But now, people have gotten used to this service," says Yako.

She says driving taxicabs was always a man’s job in Kurdistan. Some people look at women driving as something shameful. But she says there is nothing shameful about her business. It allows women to work outside the home.

Yako wants women to know they can have a better life. She says women can do many of the same jobs as men in Kurdistan.

Keeping Women Safe In The U.K.

In the U.K., Tina Dutton noticed there were no women taxicab drivers in her town of Warrington. So she and a partner started Pink Ladies taxicab service in 2005.

It is not just a taxicab service. Pink Ladies is a women’s club offering services besides driving people from one place to the next.

Dutton says her drivers "treat each passenger as they would their mother, their grandmother, their daughter.” Drivers personally walk passengers to the door.

“It’s definitely a niche market,” says Dutton. Mothers feel safer going to work. They know their daughters will be picked up at school. Or they will be dropped off at “grandma’s house or an after-school club.” The service has been especially helpful to Muslim women. “It’s given them a little more independence,” she says.

Pink Ladies plans to grow even larger. It may go as far north as Scotland and to London, in the south. “It’s very, very sad that the world has come to this,” Dutton says. Women just don’t feel safe “being alone in the car with a guy they don’t know.”

Multiculturalism In Germany

In Germany, sharing a car with people you don’t know is what Muslim Taxi is all about. It’s not a taxicab service in the traditional sense. It is a carsharing service. Selim Reid started Muslim Taxi. He is a young Muslim who came from Iraq. He lives in the city of Norderstedt.

He got the idea for the service in 2001. His parents had a bad experience using a regular car-sharing service. Two other passengers said rude things about his mother’s headscarf. Reid says he started the business in 2011 to help Muslims feel comfortable when traveling.

Not everyone is happy with Muslim Taxi, however. Some people have told Reid that it sounds as if it only serves Muslims.

But he wants everyone to be a part of it. Muslims talking to non-Muslims is key to understanding, he says. “Talk about Islam. Talk about what you have in your heart," he adds. “We have to live together … we have no other choice.”

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