Afghan women join police force
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Women are being trained up for the Afghan National Police. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with female police trainer, Scottish Police Constable Cat McBeath. Download MP3
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Lisa Mullins: As we just heard, Afghan police units need more supplies and equipment to effectively fight the Taliban. They also need more man power or in some cases, woman power. In the same provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, a few women have been serving as police officers over the past couple of years. Their mentor is a Police Constable from Scotland, Cat McBeath. We’ve reached her through telephone in Lashkar Gah and she told us about the female officers she’s working with.
Cat McBeath: They have actually a uniform, which consists of trousers and a long tunic. They also wear a veil, their main role as they search on points of entry into like the police headquarters, the governor’s compound, Bost Airport; these women search women.
Mullins: And that role of women searching women is key because insurgents have tried to exploit the fact that male officers are not allowed to search women. Constable McBeath says that the women are also trained to use firearms and to perform basic first aid, but she says there are limits to what female police officers can do in Afghanistan.
McBeath: Well, obviously because of cultural issues a woman cannot go through with a man.
Mullins: So she can’t be in the same police vehicle for instance, she can’t go on patrol on foot with a man?
McBeath: No, they don’t go out to, they haven’t developed in a way that they can go out at all, because obviously security issues as well as the cultural issues.
Mullins: The group of female police officers in Lashkar Gah is small. McBeath says there are 17 of them. Each has had to go through a four-week training course before earning her police commission, but McBeath says that some of the women had already served as police officers in the days before the Taliban were in power.
McBeath: The females have actually been established for quite a number of years, but obviously, during the Taliban regime the females were not allowed to serve as police officers, but obviously, once the regime vanished then the women started coming back to the police force.
Mullins: That again, Scottish Police Constable, Cat McBeath. She spoke to us from Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, about the female police officers she works with there.
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