Okay, it’s a novel idea but a writer in the trendy Daily Beast is proposing that the answer to corruption in Afghanistan’s police force is more female officers. Indeed, according to the report, women are already being recruited for policing duties. And they are doing pretty well:
“My uncle is not in favor of me being here, but I really did not ask his permission to come,” said Safia, a 25-year-old trainee whose late father was a colonel in the police force. “My mother approves. She is in favor of me joining.”
The women’s training is exactly the same as their male colleagues’, aside from one night shooting course. The sessions are led by Afghan senior police officials along with Italian military police who work with students in the classroom and on the shooting range.
Female police officers can investigate people and places no man could in conservative Afghanistan. Last June, male suicide bombers toting rocket grenade launchers dressed as women in burqas during a national reconciliation conference in Kabul. But during this year’s event, women police patrolled roads and conducted searches.
This sounds like progress to me.