“This is an unprecedented move by India to deploy these female officers in
policing and we applaud it and think that it is extremely timely and extremely
relevant to the policing needs in the years ahead,” Police Adviser Mark Kroeker
told the UN News Service.
“We think it’s a breakthrough that India has expressed its willingness and
it’s also good for our Liberia mission because it brings to that police
operation these officers who are trained, who are capable, who are women and who
can bring the best of what the UN police is to the component there.”
The 125 officers, who are currently undergoing the final stages of their
training in India, will make up a specialized unit, known as a Formed Police
Unit (FPU). The UN has had increasing success with such units over the past few
years as a means of bridging the gap between regular and lightly-armed police
and fully-armed blue helmets.
Details of what exact role the all-female FPU will play as part of the UN
Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) are currently being worked out, said Noor Gabow,
Acting Mission Management Coordinator at the UN Police Division. However he
added these specialized units have traditionally been employed as a rapid
reaction force, trained in crowd control and better armed than regular police,
as well as playing a strong training role for local officers.
“This Indian women’s contingent are made up solely of volunteers who have
decided that they’d like to be a part of peace operations and that they can play
an effective, credible role which we know they can,” said Mr. Gabow.
India currently contributes almost 400 police officers to UN missions
worldwide, one of the top 10 police-contributing countries, but only 15 of these
personnel are female officers, something which the introduction of the 125 women
officers in October will dramatically change and which UN officials say will
also send a powerful message for change to other contributing countries.
“This decision is extremely timely because as we look at our deployment of
women in UN police components around the world, we still retain an unacceptably
small number of three or four per cent, compared to up to 25 per cent of women
officers in an acceptable police organization,” said Mr. Kroeker, himself a
former Los Angeles police officer for over 30 years.
“It enhances our access to vulnerable populations by having women in UN
missions and also sends a message to the post-conflict societies where we work
that women officers can have any position and play any role in a police
organization, including that of commissioner, or deputy-commissioner or chief of
regions or whatever.”
The all-female Indian unit will join other FPUs currently serving in Liberia,
where the concept was first tried out although its success there and in other
operations has led to calls for increasing deployment.
UN officials also highlight that FPUs are cheaper to deploy than regular
military units, noting that it costs around $5 million to set up a specialized
police formation while a military battalion can cost up $30 million. In
addition, the deployment of FPUs sends a message to the populations of
post-conflict countries that the UN is demilitarizing, while maintaining a
credible force that at the same time is helping build local police capacity.
___________________________________________________________________
1 September 2006
– India’s landmark decision to send 125 female police officers, one
complete specialized unit, to assist United Nations peacekeeping operations in
Liberia in October is an “unprecedented” move that sends a message not only to
other post-conflict countries about the importance of having women officers, but
also to police contributing nations, senior UN officials said today.
Female Indian UN police
officers