Misogyny on the streets: Harassment, lack of facilities leads female wardens to quit field tasks

No patrolling by female wardens since December last year. They now work at licensing, ticketing and educational wings

LAHORE:

All female traffic wardens recruited last year for patrolling duties have been given desk assignments. Talking to The Express Tribune, some wardens said incidents of harassment by male commuters and lack of separate facilities, like restrooms and sitting area, near their posts had led them to abandon patrolling duties.

The last batch of female wardens was recruited for patrolling duties after a two-month training in March 2014. They were given 250cc motorbikes to patrol different city roads. There are 95 female wardens in the City Traffic Police. All of them are now assigned duties at the licensing, ticketing and educational wings of the force. The recruitment of female wardens had started in 2008. From eight wardens, all on patrolling duties, the strength of female staff in the traffic police had increased to 150 in 2013.

Talking to The Tribune on condition of anonymity, one of the female wardens said she left patrolling duties and opted for office assignment after a harassment incident involving her colleague near GPO Chowk. She said a motorcyclist and his pillion stopped for a violation had groped her colleague when she asked for the driving licence. “I felt extremely vulnerable. We broke into tears and went to the CTO office to tell him about it,” she said. She said frequent incidents of harassment on the roads was a key reason why she and her several colleagues decided to move to a desk job.

Some of the female wardens also complained about lack of separate facilities in the field. One of them said lack of water coolers and separate restrooms and sitting area near their posts had made patrolling duties extremely cumbersome.

CTO Tayyab Hafeez Cheema said the facilities were available at all section offices in the city. He said there were restrooms and sitting area at these offices. The offices were located in proximity of patrolling points, he added. During a visit to a section office, this correspondent found restrooms and a sitting area. However, there were no separate facilities for female wardens.

The CTO said he had decided to withdraw wardens from field duties in view of increasing number of harassment incidents. He said the city police were not approached for investigation of harassment incidents because no complaint was received for the purpose.

He said before removing them from field duties he had tried deploying female wardens in groups and had also appointed a male warden with each group. “They are part of my team. I have to facilitate them,” he said. He said it was unfortunate that female wardens had to be withdrawn from field duties.

The CTO said female wardens were still assigned field duties on special occasions like the Independence Day. However, he said these duties did not include patrolling the roads. He said last batch of female wardens that patrolled city roads was in December last year.

The Punjab Protection of Women against Violence Bill of 2015 provides for remedies to working women in harassment incidents at workplace. However, no warden has yet filed a complaint under the law.

Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit senior member Salman Sufi, an author of the bill, said it was unfortunate that female wardens had to abandon field duties because of harassment incidents.

There is no departmental policy on patrolling duties by female wardens. It is the CTO’s prerogative to decide whether or not they should do it.

Former CTO Sohail Chaudhary, who was in charge of the traffic police when field assignments were resumed for female wardens in 2014, said female wardens had been assigned patrolling duties hoping that behaviour of commuters would improve as a result. Besides, he said the move was meant to send out a message to the public that women could do all kinds of work. He said it was unfortunate that behaviour of commuters worsened after female wardens were assigned patrolling duties.

Former CTO Capt Syed Ahmad Mobeen said he had ordered transfer of female wardens to office assignment to avoid a situation where they would quit.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2015.