More women needed for country's fledgling police force

Focusing her camera, Jamila, a 33-year-old policewoman attempts to photograph fingerprints on a stolen vehicle along a busy street in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The mother-of-two is one of the only eight policewomen at the 85-member internationally trained new department for crime scene investigation within the Afghan Interior Ministry. But with the creation of a nationally trained army still in its infancy, and most of the current Afghan police force comprised of previous militias, such scenes remain very much the exception, rather than the rule, not to mention a major surprise for Kabul residents in a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Banned from employment just over two years ago, women were beaten if caught not wearing a burqa [top to bottom covering veil], or if they were seen on the streets without a male family member. “Although it is a bit difficult, it's challenging to serve as a policewoman given some of the sensitivities. I have noticed that people - mostly women - feel very relaxed and excited when they see us [policewomen] in the field,” the newly graduated crime investigator told IRIN. And though Jamila and her colleagues were trained by British experts over the last six months as part of a three-year UK-supported Afghan police training programme, the country is finding it increasingly difficult to attract new female recruits in its efforts to create a 50,000 trained national police force over the next five years, according to interior ministry officials. Creation of such a force is viewed by many as a vital component of the government's effort to extend its writ beyond the confines of the capital. There is already a police academy supported by Germany, from where 500 police officers graduate annually, as well as a US-sponsored police-training course, with several hundred graduates every two months in the capital and some regional cities. But with thousands of men being trained at these two centres, less than 10 women have been registered thus far - indicative of a further need to attract female recruits in this largely conservative Islamic nation of 29 million. “We have 400 students in the academy level, but there is only one female student,” General Noorullah Zuhal, deputy chief of Afghanistan’s only police academy told IRIN. After the last 10 years of conflict in the country, women had subsequently been discouraged to sign up for the police academy or to work in the military units, he charged. “This is the heritage of a decade of the civil war. We have to remove this fear because without women we can't make any progress,” Zuhal stressed. And while there are special arrangements for female attendees at the academy, there remained an acute lack of public awareness to encourage communities to let their literate women to serve.

Female police recruits on the streets of Kabul remain rare

“We have a system that if they are female students, they can go home at night," he offered. "We even provide them with transport and they can come in casual cloths if they want,” he said, noting that a more intensive campaign would be needed to boost their numbers. And though there were some women in the Afghan police force already, most of whom had been recruited during the Soviet Union's occupation of the country that ended 15 years earlier, and had returned after the Taliban were ousted in late 2001, their numbers were too few to be counted. "There are very few cadre and professional policewomen," General Aziza Nazari, deputy director of the human rights board at the Ministry of Interior told IRIN. The 47-year-old officer, who served as a policewoman for the past 30 years, said the country needed policewomen now more than ever. “Cultural complexities, ultraconservatism and community sensitivities are more serious nowadays and can be obstacles for the police to act efficiently without female recruits in certain conditions,” the mother-of-three maintained. The veteran police officer believed a great number of policewomen were needed, particularly with ongoing efforts to register voters throughout the country prior to the presidential elections slated for June. “I think having policewomen in the registration or voting sites will create more privacy and encourage more women to participate in the process,” she said. Meanwhile, with the current existing limited number of policewomen, the Afghan interior ministry, in coordination with the UN in Kabul, has started a four-day orientation for policewomen who will be assigned at the registration sites in Kabul. However, it will not be repeated in the provinces, where their numbers are even lower.