ANALYSIS: Police, Security and Women in Peace Processes

Why is it that although rule of law and police reform are often stated to be priorities during peace processes, women still face rising insecurity in ‘post'-conflict societies? Afghanistan offers some lessons on the triangular nexus between police, security and women in peace processes.

At a Think-Tank on police reform convened by the Minister of Interior in Kabul from 29 November to 1 December 2010, ISAF's Major General Beare reported optimistically that his National Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A) was progressing. One year after centralising training, police strength had increased 23 per cent from 94,958 to 116,367; 13,955 received mandatory literacy training, as most recruits are illiterate. With huge new training centres opened, NTM-A had overshot its schedule towards deploying 134,000 police by October 2011.[i] The previous week, at NATO's Lisbon Summit member states committed to maintaining their military presence in Afghanistan until 2014, and continuing peacebuilding support thereafter.[ii]

Has NATO's nine year commitment to security in Afghanistan and this recent surge in police deployment benefited ordinary Afghans, particularly women and children? Patently not. On 25 November 2010, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission called urgent attention to the alarming rise in sexual violence against women and children in Afghanistan.

This is shocking, but it mirrors a global phenomenon. Societies emerge from war proudly brandishing peace agreements, but their women and children face higher levels of violence – criminal, political, sexual and domestic – and steeper mortality rates than during war. ‘Post'-war societies, whether in Africa, Asia, Balkans, Latin America or Middle East, confirm this alarming trend.

What relevance does this have for peacemaking?

Sometimes prescient mediators delineate rule of law reform, and separate police from military functions after war's militarisation within peace agreements, thus forcing compliance from recalcitrant government officials, as in El Salvador. Often, as in Afghanistan's Bonn Agreement, mediators achieve minimal terms in highly constrained negotiations, leaving national leaders and international peacebuilders to haggle over details later. This is short-sighted.

With spiraling insecurity in ostensible ‘post-war' settings, police are invariably deployed to perform military functions, leaving civilians unprotected with impunity rampant. Untrained in their proper function of upholding rule of law and protecting civilians' rights, police frequently – albeit unwittingly – violate law themselves in imposing order, losing public trust not only in the police but in the state itself.

This is Afghanistan's reality. As Taliban insurgency spreads, despite the presence of US troops and an increasing number of largely US-trained Afghan National Army troops, ill-trained police recruited from desperately poor, unemployed and illiterate populations, are sent in to combat with disastrous consequences. Furthermore, both police and army are centrally trained by the NTM-A, potentially increasing police-military confusion.

Meanwhile civilian policing is minimal or absent, and spoilers violate and traffic women and children, alongside drugs, without consequences. Violence against women is considered a second-order priority, to be dealt with once security is established and insurgency defeated. Ironically, it is not recognised that often the same spoilers who violate women cause national insecurity, and acting firmly against them would reduce the security threat itself.

Establishing the Afghan National Police as a civilian police service that serves all Afghans and upholds the rule of law is a priority, as is regaining public trust by resuming police functions and desisting from military functions, despite the demands of counter-insurgency.[iii] Fortunately, the Ministry of Interior recognises this. Commendably, the Minister of Interior, Bismullah Mohammadi's six priorities include increasing women's recruitment from today's roughly 1,000 to at least 5,000, and instituting rewards and punishments for police to establish internal accountability.[iv] But today, cultural, professional and security disincentives deter women although in the 1970s, women constituted one third of Afghanistan's police, including as commanders.

All cultures and religions enshrine the values of justice, dignity and equality before divine law, and protect the most vulnerable, particularly women, children and elderly. Violating women and children is not only against international human rights law, but intolerable to cultural and spiritual sensitivities; it is abhorrent to Islamic and Afghan values, yet unchecked in Afghanistan today.

Several lessons can be drawn from Afghanistan for peacemaking:

• Peace agreements must prioritise the prevention of violence against women and children, and enforce zero-tolerance of violations.
  
• Mediators must dare to address impunity and establish clear accountability terms and mechanisms within peace agreements. Otherwise impunity will scupper peace.
  
• The tendency towards minimalist peace agreements must be re-assessed; wherever possible, justice and rule of law issues must be addressed in detail. Police reform, as distinct from security sector reform, must be spelt out. Leaving it to later can be counter-productive.
  
• Peace agreements addressing police reform must specify the requirement for a police service that upholds the rule of law at all times in protecting civilians, and desists from military functions. The police are the first face of the state; if people don't trust their police, they will not trust their government, or the new peace.
  
• Mediators cannot ignore culture. Culture can be an asset for more appropriate and comprehensive peace agreements. Mediators must understand and integrate the cultural sensibilities of each context within peace processes and agreements, without allowing it to be used as a justification, for example to exclude women or marginalised groups.
  
• Women must be core constituents in both shaping security arrangements in peace negotiations, and in delivering them in peacebuilding processes thereafter. Peace agreements could require the establishment of conditions conducive for women's recruitment into the police, military and judiciary as well as parliament. Peace processes could serve to build greater inclusion of women in political processes, and overcome male reticence.

Dr. Rama Mani, an established international expert on peacebuilding, justice and security, was invited by the Afghan Minister of Interior to make the opening presentation at the high-level Think-Tank on Police Reform during Insurgency convened by him in Kabul from 29 November to 1 December 2010. She is a Councilor of the World Future Council, and author of Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War (Blackwell, 2007). She is a Senior Research Associate of the Centre for International Studies at the University of Oxford, and Project Director of Ending Mass Atrocities: Southern Cultural Perspectives. She was formerly Executive Director of ICES – International Centre for Ethnic Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Director of the New Issues in Security Course at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

NOTES

[i] See www.ntm-a.com, and NTM-A: Year in Review, Nov 2010.

[ii] ‘NATO sees Long-Term Role after Afghan Combat”, Steven Erlanger and Jackie Calmes, New York Times, 20 November, 2010, (www.nytimes.com). (On 26th November 2010, the day I landed in Kabul, US-led Coalition forces had been in Afghanistan as long as Russian forces, albeit with different purposes. See “US now in Afghanistan as long as Soviets”, Patrick Quinn, Associated Press, 26 November, 2010 (www.msnbc.msn.com).

[iii] From my opening framework presentation at the Think-Tank, 29.11.2010.

[iv] Minister's opening speech at Think-Tank, 29.11.2010.