SOMALIA: Somali Women Make History & Join Police Force

Date: 
Friday, November 2, 2012
Source: 
UR News Now
Countries: 
Africa
Eastern Africa
Somalia
PeaceWomen Consolidated Themes: 
Reconstruction and Peacebuilding

In the conflict ridden Somali capital Mogadishu, Somali women have been given a rare opportunity to join the Somali Police Force, a step not familiar in the past two decades.

The General Kahiye Police Academy is where the newly recruited female cadets were undergoing intensive training at the hands of their mentors. The female officers have been deployed at each and every police station and operate alongside their male counterparts.

The new female officers hope to challenge the male culture that has for many years dominated the Somali society by proving that they too, can be actively involved in the maintenance of law and order.

These young female police officers have joined the Somali police force with a desire to maintain law and order in a country marred by more than two decades of civil war.

At the General Kahiye Police Academy, the Somali policewomen receive similar training to their male counterparts on a daily basis. They are taught basic police training at different levels with the hope of creating a stable police department, two decades after the fall of the Somali central government.

Women police have been seen on the Mogadishu streets manning the traffic, participating in security crackdown while others have joined the country's Criminal Investigation Department to combat serious crimes.

As a part of boosting the security situation in Somalia, the African Union also sent police from several East and West African countries to train the Somali police officers who will be under tasked with maintaining the country's security after the exit of the African Union forces.