INTERNATIONAL: UN Seeks More Female Police for Peacekeeping Missions

Date: 
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Source: 
The Gazette
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Participation
Peacekeeping

The United Nations is looking for a "few good women" — more than 2,000 to be exact — to serve as police officers in UN peacekeeping missions around the world.

Declaring a stepped-up recruitment campaign Thursday, UN Police Adviser Ann-Marie Orler said the world body seeks to more than double the proportion of women serving in UN Police (UNPOL) — to 20 per cent by 2014. The UN also has a shortage of French-speaking police officers, making Canada a "target" country for further recruitment.

"We're asking member states to forward more female nominations," said Orler, a Swede who rose to the top UN police job in March after having served as deputy police adviser since 2008.

Women make up just 8.5 per cent of the 17,400 police officers the UN has been authorized to deploy in the 17 peacekeeping missions it currently operates, records show.

That's despite a UN Security Council resolution a decade ago that stressed the importance of giving women equal participation and full involvement in peace and security matters, and called for their role in decision making to be increased.

"It's not very easy for women to discuss sexual violence issues with a male officer, but they feel free to bring out their cases with female officers," said Doreen Malombo, the police gender adviser for the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has separately noted female UN officers serve as role models, inspiring local women to want to serve in the police forces of their respective countries.

Of the 127 Canadian police offers serving with the UN, 14 are women, serving in such places as Haiti, Cyprus and Ivory Coast.

Bangladesh aims to recruit 10,000 more female police officers in the coming months, while Liberia has also set the 20 per cent target for 2014, said Orler.

Germany, meanwhile, recently announced it would spend $1.7 million U.S. to help develop a UN Police "Standardized Training Curriculum" on investigating and preventing sexual and gender-based crimes.

"This training curriculum is aimed at ensuring that UN police officers possess the skill sets necessary to manage cases on sexual and gender-based violence throughout the process of investigation, prosecution and trial," Orler said.