KABUL: (MEP) – The Ministry of Interior (MoI) on Monday announced that the strength of policewomen serving in the Afghan National Police (ANP) would reach 10,000 recruits in 2014, with additional plans to promote some female police officers to station chiefs in certain parts of the country.
The announcement comes just after the MoI told media that 105 policewomen were being sent to Turkey for further training while another group consisting of 30 female officers were off to Egypt for the same purpose.
“The Ministry of Interior works on a variety of supporting programs for policewomen, and one of our strategic programs is to work on the quantity of female officers,” MoI spokesman Sediq Sediqi said.
One of the major motivators for ramping-up female police recruitment for this year is the April Presidential and Provincial Council elections. Though security broadly is a top concern for officials, many experts have expressed fears that female voters will be less likely to turnout to cast ballots if there remains a shortage of female officers to provide the mandatory body searches for entering the polling centers.
In fact, the desire to keep men and women officers separate in training and work seems to have proven an obstacle for the MoI in its pursuit of greater female recruitment.
“We require female instructors in the national police force,” said Tahir, a member of the Gender and Human Rights Department of the MoI
Some female officers have served in combat, but the presence of high-ranking female officers is still scarce.
“The women who serve in security organs should be supported to further develop everyday,” a female officer of the Afghan Public Protection Force Department named Maryam said.
The MoI’s move to promote female officers would mark a major point of progress for women in security institutions in Afghanistan as well as the movement for women’s rights in the country more broadly.
“This is a unique move taken by the Ministry of Interior to nominate policewomen as the heads of police stations,” Deputy Head of the Gender and Human Rights Department of the MoI Ms. Gulalai said. “It’s really a positive development and the policewomen highly appreciate the decision.”
Nevertheless, the projected progress remains in a more sobering context, which reminds just how far women in Afghan security institutions have to go.
Only 1 percent of Afghanistan’s police officers are female, and if the country does not dramatically increase the number of women in the service it will struggle to end crimes such as domestic abuse, forced marriage and “honor” killings, a recent report from Oxfam argued.
There is only one female police officer for every 10,000 women in Afghanistan. In contrast, the proportion of police officers who are female in England and Wales is just over 27 percent.
Top commanders in Afghanistan show little interest in recruiting women. When they do join they are deprived of basic requirements such as uniforms and women-only toilet facilities, according to the Oxfam report.
