Progress has been made over the last two years in attracting more female
officers into the UN Police, including the recent introduction into Liberia of
an all-female specialized unit, but while the Peacekeeping Department's (DPKO)
Police Adviser Mark Kroeker is full of praise for all his officers worldwide
both men and women, he says the current figure of just 6 per cent of the force
made up of female officers is unacceptable.
I am extremely gratified by the increase in the numbers of women who serve
in police components in UN missions. The fact that we have women in police and
that they are serving in various leadership positions, and various tactical
positions, an entire Formed Police Unit (FPU) for example made up of women in
Liberia, this is all encouraging, he told the UN News Centre.
But this is way too few. Our attempts at getting our Members States to
contribute police are difficult but the attempts in addition to add women to
their contribution, this is almost impossible: we need to have women police
officers so that we send the signal that women are co-equals in police work and
that's the way it should be because they're available for every assignment as
every man is in policing.
The 20-23 March workshop in Brindisi, Italy, will bring together around 30
gender experts from both within and outside the UN to further discuss ways to
encourage Member States to provide more female officers, as well as come up with
operational guidelines for officers in the field.
It will also build on recommendations made at earlier UN Police meetings,
including a two-day seminar in Nigeria in January, which called among other
things for the Police Adviser to visit prospective donor countries to discuss
with them the need to provide a mix of male and female officers.
We are grateful to the countries that have provided officers to UN policing,
but we have a lot of work to do to get more women into the field, we can do a
lot better, says Mr. Kroeker, who will give the keynote address at the Brindisi
meeting, as well as offer other institutional support.
The first and foremost reason that women should be in policing is that
police organizations, if they're not an occupying force but a service
organization, should reflect the communities that they serve, and the
communities that they serve have a gender mix. And if you show that you have a
mixed composition there's a very significant chance that you will increase the
receptivity, the respect that that community will have for the police.
He also noted that there are certain specific responsibilities that women in
most cases perform better than male officers, namely sexual assault cases and in
some instances child abuse cases where the victims mostly female, feel more at
ease, culturally and emotionally, dealing with a female officer.