Wanted: more policewomen

Data out of the Pakistan’s National Police Bureau (NPB) shows that less than two per cent of the nation’s police force is female. Balochistan has a negligible representation of women in its force standing at 0.47 per cent and the rest of the provinces only range up to a maximum of 3.4 per cent in Gilgit-Baltistan. The statistics are abysmal. We need better representation of women in the police force for several reasons; the pitiful numbers perpetuate the stereotype of women being submissive and weak. But the time has come to explode this myth and encourage women into the police force. In order to fix the problem reflected in the NPB’s numbers, awareness needs to be spread and internal changes made in the force.

The acknowledgment that there is discrimination against women within the police system is the second hindrance women face when deciding to join a force that ideally works to implement justice and rule of law. Police forces across the nation need to work on friendlier policies and ones that do not discriminate against women as skills sets are not gender-specific, even though male and female brains exhibit some sex differences. Hiring more female members into a task force improves representation and brings valuable perspectives to the field.

For a society that has long shunned its women in the public sphere and dealt them innumerable forms of injustice and abuse, we can reverse this by empowering more women through recruitment into law-enforcement agencies. Cases such as rape, honour killings and acid attacks against women need to be viewed through the perspective of women as often male police officers become barriers to justice by sending disheartened families back home.

Provincial police forces must work towards spreading awareness to first eliminate stereotypes and then provide incentives for women to join our nation’s police force.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2017.

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