PESHAWAR: A one-day Women Police Network (WPN) Symposium was held at a local hotel in Peshawar on Monday. The Symposium was organized by Gender Responsive Policing Project with collaboration of National Police Bureau of Pakistan and Govt of German (GIZ). Additional IGP Elite Force Tariq Javed chaired the fist session.
Inspector Investigation Shahzadi Naushad presented her paper on Woman Police Network (WPN) in which she highlighted the establishment of WPN, trend at the international level, its basic purpose, structure, standard of selection of the members of the board and its responsibilities. SHO woman police station Peshawar Inspector Rozia Altaf threw light on the basic responsibilities and work of the Police Council.
Senior Gender Advisor of the project Aliya Sethi narrated the history and purpose of the WPN and stressed the need to sensitize public and government officials about the issues, problems and requirements of woman police.
Additional IGP Tariq Javed while addressing the participants said that no Nation can achieve the zenith of success without active participation of woman in every field of life. He informed that priorities of the project to improve gender sensitivity of police are increasing women’s recruitment, improving their capacity and role in policing and making police work environments, training and Policing services responsive to the needs of both women and men.
He informed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police has developed an action plan based on the strategy to set targets for improving the strength of women in police and planned other measures to gradually achieve the strategy objective. He further informed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police has taken the initiative of setting up Women Desks in all police stations in the country with a purpose to facilitate women complainants to access police station and added it has brought women police into the mainstream of policing as well.
DIG Investigation Muhammad Ali Babakhel while giving presentation on performance of women police stations informed that police was very hazardous profession now-a-day in our country and there was 12 police stations in the country as compared to 442 women police stations in India in which 196 women police station are in Tamil Nadu.
He expressed dissatisfaction over the working condition and performance of women police station and said that ladies police enlisted in 1990 have so far not got training and there was lack of coordination between recruitment centre and training centre. He maintained that there were no physical instructors in 23 women institutions in the country and only 11 Law Instructors are available in the country. He said that our women police stations are working as a transit camp and added that women police was a respected profession and we have to avoid apologetic approach towards it and have to improve its working environment and condition. He suggested that recruitment standard should be made friendlier for women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so that they can prove its mettle to deliver to the needy people.
SP Headquarters Peshawar Syed Hasnain Haider in his speech has informed that the idea of women Desks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been materialized and 70 women Desks had been established through out the province which is providing excellent services to the victimized women. He informed that unfortunately the script and role of women life was usually written by the men of the society which were not up to the needs and requirements of women folk. He stressed the need for empowerment of women and the immediate focus should be on its training, organization, regular feedback and facilities.
The president of the Women Police Network DIG Haleena Saeed did orientation of the participants about how to deal and provide succour and relief to the complainant women. She personally asked questions from each and every participant and sensitized them on the issue. Challenges and opportunities for women in policing and dealing with women seeking police assistance were also debated upon in different sessions and several recommendation were presented in it. A total of 40 women police officers from all over the province participated in the symposium.
