Canadian Woman First to Serve at Afghan Police Substation
Increasingly the Taliban have taken to dressing up as women or forcing women to carry weapons for them through police checkpoints in Afghanistan. Afghani police, who are male, on the checkpoints are prohibited from searching women. The search would go against their cultural norms. Women are still largely clothed in burkas which hides their identities and are baggy enough that arms and explosives can be hidden underneath.This situation allows the Taliban free movement past checkpoints.
Meanwhile back at the base in Kandahar women deployed with the Canadian Forces military police were confined to working in the detention centre because of the cultural restrictions on women. After training together with the guys for a year in Canada, Cpl. Jennifer Lettre was close to requesting a return to Canada after being left behind in Afghanistan. That was until Mohammad Safai, Afghan National Police chief at a substation in the Zari district asked for a woman to work at the station.
Cpl Lettre was deployed in response to the request. In addition to working alongside the ANP, the Canadians are also engaged in further training them. That meant that not only was the unheard of about to happen, a woman was being asked to help the police do their job, but she was going to be giving them orders.
Afghan women have been trained as police officers in Afghanistan. The Australians started that training earlier this year. Like early Canadian female police officers, female Afghani officers are confined to working in what is considered more female roles like dealing with offenses involving women and children.
It is good that these front line police are being exposed to the capability of women in a manner that supports their needs in the field. Not all will embrace her presence but it is a step towards a greater acceptance of women in equal roles.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by PattiM on 11/26/2007 at 4:13 pm, and is filed under Afghanistan. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
