LAHORE – A consultation workshop to develop a gender strategy for police organizations in the country was held on Tuesday at the Avari Hotel with the involvement of senior management officials in the Punjab Police.
Approximately 30 police officers participated from all parts of Punjab of which 13 were women.
The consultation was facilitated by the Gender Responsive Policing Project (GRPP) – a joint venture of the National Police Bureau (NPB) and German Agency for International cooperation (GIZ), funded by the foreign office of Germany. The issues faced by women within the police organizations were highlighted, ranging from recruitment to retention and from training to promotion.
Emphasis was laid on the increasing need for active involvement of women within the police force especially considering that the number of male officers for security duties had increased over time. Punjab Police Additional IG Training Sarmad Saeed Khan said, “Consultation provides us a good opportunity to share our views and discuss how to make the police organizations more responsive to gender concerns.
The NPB together with GIZ is undertaking the GRPP, and the consultations are being initiated to get input on developing a gender responsive strategy for the police. The focus of consultation was on assessing the police’s operational services and its internal organizational processes to identify areas that need to be improved and reformed to bridge the gender differences.”
GRPP Principal Advisor Dr Khola Iram said, “The gender strategy will provide a framework to improve effectiveness of the police from the perspective of equality, both at organizational environment level and policing functions. It is important that we recognize gender issues and deliberate upon how we can overcome the challenge of gender imbalance.”
She also mentioned the launch of at least four ladies complaint units in Lahore in near future, which will provide the women police officers to prove their skills and abilities, encouraging female victims of violence to report crimes with confidence.
Punjab Police Investigation Additional IG Azam Joiya appreciated GRPP Project for facilitating the Police Training School Chung to conduct the Advance Investigation Courses for women police, and appreciated the capacity building initiative as it will expand the range of functions to be performed by women police. He emphasized on women’s posting as investigation officers (IOs), which would enhance the policing services in terms of better assistance and response to women complainants.
He added, “It was very important that the trained WPOs are given operational level policing opportunities with adequate support to make use of their newly acquired skills and demonstrate their potential.” SSP Farkhanda Iqbal said a small number of men police officers were involved in counter terrorism activities and WPOs must be involved in active policing to share the burden. She said women were often kept away from mainstream policing and it was wastage of human resources.
She emphasized that women were capable to take part in active policing. SP Nabila Rana said women had a ‘special eye’ for details but police had never utilized this ‘natural skill’ of women which could be used for evidence collection. The workshop was also held in Sindh on a provincial basis prior to this. The organization is working on addressing police forces in all four provinces separately in order to pass on their message in a more effective manner.
