Women cabbies thrive in Fiji

While women are still considered a minority in the taxi industry, their number has increased over the years in Fiji.

Founder of Female Taxi Drivers in Fiji, Irene Pal said with the rise of rideshare companies, more women are opting for this profession.

Since the establishment of the group a year ago on the occasion of International Women’s Day, Ms Pal said women are defying odds and breaking barriers in this heavily male dominated industry.

“Our recognition has enabled more women to venture in the taxi industry,” Ms Pal said.

“When we started this group, we had around five women in the Suva-Nausori corridor driving taxis.

“But now, we have this group set up in North and West and each group has more than six women cab drivers.

“The youngest is a 43-year-old and our oldest female taxi driver is a 65-year-old who looks after her grandchildren through taxi.

“It helped women get employed as cab drivers and chauffeurs for women, making transportation safer for females,” she said.

Ms Pal, who began driving an LPG gas taxi in 2019, said it was not an easy task establishing this group.

“When I started driving a taxi, I saw very few women in this industry.

“Not that women were afraid to drive a taxi but they did not have support from home.

“That’s when I thought of encouraging more women in this business.

“We faced a lot of challenges in bringing the female cab drivers together.

“Some female drivers thought making a group was a useless thing.

“Even a lot of people, especially the men, criticised us when we started this group.

“There was no support shown from the male taxi drivers on the road as well,” she said.

While Ms Pal initiated the idea of generating interest in women to get a taste of taxi business, there are multiple reasons for this gender disparity.

And one major reason is the ‘challenging’ environment taxi drivers are required to work in.

“I realized that people are not respecting lady drivers.

“Some of us have been robbed.

“We don’t own the taxi so we have to work very hard and drive till dark to meet the daily income, fuel price and then make a certain profit for ourselves.

“A lot of people made fun of us and we got to hear words like ‘we should not compare ourselves to men’, ‘women look good in the kitchen only’ or ‘if women drive taxis then who will do the housework’.

“Most of the female taxi drivers are single mothers and we are risking our lives but we drive to meet the ends of our family,” she said.

Ms Pal said she was always keen to overcome the gender biases in the industry.

“A lot of women are interested in this field but there is a lack of family support.

“We want to give women equal opportunity as men and for that we are requesting families to help women break the barrier.

“We are getting a lot of support from the older generation and this has helped some of us to come out of the stigma that women cannot drive taxis.

“Our group meets once a month and we get lots of requests from females who have a taxi license and want to join us,” she said.

The 51-year-old said women are not just involved in driving but they are also there to help each other in difficult situations.

“All our female taxi drivers know how to change tyres and have all the equipment in the car.

“We have undergone scenarios where one of our driver’s taxi tyre got punctured and there was another lady taxi driver on the ground providing assistance.

“At times when the elderly people don’t have enough money, we provide free taxi service and also assist children to reach school in rainy weather,” she said.

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