Women and police

Somethings need our immediate attention

Violence against women (VAW) is rooted in gender-based intolerance and gender discrimination. Addressing VAW without taking into account the wider background in which women can advance and the need to protect women’s basic rights is hopeless. The laws and policies formulated should be geared towards assisting women victims and making sure that they are protected. Putting an end to VAW is not the task of one individual, actor or faction, but requires a shared support. Ultimate eradication will need a shared rejoinder in which everybody has a role to play. It is important to engage all stakeholders, men and women, in both growing and developed countries, parliament, judiciary, law enforcement entities, civil society, private sector and international associations.

In Pakistan, women’s chances of inheriting property, getting education and employment remain significantly lower as compared to men’s. The communal and cultural framework of Pakistani society is principally patriarchal. Women have a squat proportion of contribution in society outside of the family. Despite the enhancement in Pakistan’s literacy rate since its independence, the literacy rate of Pakistani women is amongst the lowest in the world. The literacy rate of urban women is more than five times than the rate of rural women. The educational achievements of female students are high as compared with male students at diverse levels of education. Women in Pakistan are mostly attached to a few typical professions, mostly narrated by their family and the society like teaching, banking, medicine etc. We have to break this mindset and step forward.

The violence against women in Pakistan is a foremost dilemma. This problem is mounting rapidly within our society, and as a result the social fragment is getting more and more distorted. Women in Pakistan constitute almost 50 percent of the population, and if they are positively guided they can play an active role in the development of the country. Women are linked with different professions and are playing an active role in different social spheres. Educated and empowered women have the capacity to change the course of the history by uplifting our upcoming generations.

Our country is facing diverse challenges in many sectors. We have to bring women to the mainstream professions so as to get maximum benefits from their expertise. The term women policing is not new to the world, but for us this is new. The results of different surveys reveal that at present only one percent women are a part of police department in Pakistan out of a 50 percent of total population. These results are quite alarming, and it is very important to navigate in a direction where we can create new avenues of growth and empowerment for the women of Pakistan.

Women in Pakistan can contribute positively to the state and society. Women in the police department can become role models for our educated women. Women police officers can pave the way for the educated women of Pakistan to join different professions and excel in the right direction. The police department in Pakistan has always received criticism from the society due to different reasons. The police system in Pakistan is still working with a command and control model where the males dominate the overall structure. It needs our immdiate attention in order to become more flexible, efficient and effective.

The present structure of police department does not provide a level playing field for more educated women to be inducted at higher positions. This lack of empowerment is a great hurdle for the women police officers where they are not in a position to execute certain job duties. It is this type of bias that makes it near impossible to attract young women to enter any department. The society starts questioning the motives and character of a woman who enters police or any other government department, other than a few considered to be kosher departments.

We have to change the overall environment of police department, not just more acceptable to women officers but the overall structure. This will be a positive development as it will help in eradicating the problems of corruption, the image of the police, and of course the violence against women from our society. Women police officers are in a better position to understand the issues of women, both victims and criminals, as compared to men. It is important that the educated women of our society must be facilitated. This facilitation will help in creating a positive future for our coming generations.