HAITI: Female Contingent

Bangladesh's first female contingent to be deployed to an UN peacekeeping mission arrived today (1 June) in quake-ravaged Haiti to carry out humanitarian activities and community policing. A total of 110 female Formed Police Unit (FPU) will work alongside their male colleagues to serve the UN Stabilization mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Khanam Rocktar, Commander, Bangladeshi Female Formed Police Unit: "Protecting Human Rights, especially women and children, and securing and maintaining law and order, thus making the environment stable. As part of the mandate we'll go for this kind of job according to our police job." The South Asian nation agreed to send additional peacekeepers to Haiti in January when the UN requested help after the massive earthquake struck. Khanam Rocktar, Commander of Bangladeshi Female FPU: "Sometimes distressed people among the women feel it easier to talk to women. Women have some kind of natural qualities. It is to help distressed people. I think that might the Haitian people as well as the UN." Bangladesh, which makes the second-largest contribution to UN peacekeeping missions after Pakistan, has over 1,600 police currently deployed in seven countries including Sudan, East Timor, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia