COTE D'IVOIRE: UN-backed Workshop to Boost the Satut of Policewomen in Cote D' Ivoire

Date: 
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Source: 
UNNews
Countries: 
Africa
Western Africa
Ivory Coast
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Participation
Human Rights

Improving the status and effectiveness of women, whose numbers have risen steadily in the past decade, in the police force of the Côte d'Ivoire is the subject of a new training course organized by the United Nations mission known as UNOCI in the West African country.

Some 30 Ivorian police officials are taking the course – created by the UN Police (UNPOL) and the Gender Unit of UNOCI and financed by the German cooperation agency,GTZ – which examines “the reception, work and environment of women in the national police, a milieu previously exclusively for men,” according to the mission.

Women now number around 1,700, which is around 10 per cent of national police in Côte d'Ivoire, says UNOCI, which is assisting the implementation of the peace process in the country, following its division into a Government-controlled south and a rebel-dominated north in 2002.

At the launch of the three-day training session, which took place in the city of Grand-Bassam, east of the capital Abidjan, the head of UNOCI's Gender Unit, Eva Dalak, said that the seminar could bring about a better integration of women into the national police. Reaching that goal, she said, depended on individual responsibility, on leadership and the engagement of participants, who would develop a follow-up plan of action during the course.