Female police officers to dominate peace keeping missions—IG
Inspector General of Police (IG) Lot Dzonzi says future peace keeping missions involving Malawi Police Services (MPS) will see the number of women surpassing men due to the nature of operations in most of the countries besieged by conflicts.
Dzonzi’s sentiments come at a time when MPS is sending a contingent of 26 officers to Darfur comprising 12 female and 14 male officers.
The officers will leave the country on 26 August and they are going to replace a contingent which came back in December 2013.
Said Dzonzi: “In December over 50 officers returned home and three remained behind. These 3 will be back later on because of the nature of their job. What I foresee is that in future, due to the cultures in most of the countries we deploy police peace keepers, the number of women will surpass those of men.”
“[For instance], in Darfur, male officers are not allowed to interact with female members of the community due to strong cultural beliefs, hence the need for more female peace keepers.”
According to Dzonzi, the officers being deployed are coming out of two groups—one which was interviewed under the UN SAT examinations [ an assessment procedure for police officers for service in UN peacekeeping operations]while the second group is that of police women officers who received peace keeping training under the auspices of the United Nations but supported by the Norwegian Police and the Institute of Security Studies of South Africa.
“In most countries, women don’t do as well as male officers do in UN SAT examinations but despite that there is a demand for more women; the UN want to see more female officers deployed in peace keeping missions,” said Dzonzi.
