 | AFP
19 January 2005
Bangladesh plans big rise in number of women police
DHAKA - Mainly Muslim Bangladesh aims to raise the percentage of women
on its police force to 30 percent from 1.2 percent under a three-year
programme sponsored by the United Nations and Britain, officials said
on Wednesday.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has teamed up with
Britain's Department for International Development to help the
nationwide Bangladesh police force increase female recruiting.
"The police force has about 116,000 personnel at the moment but only
1.2 per cent" or 1,392 of its members are women, UNDP programme
manager Manjurul Kabir told AFP.
As part of the 15-million-dollar project, the new women officers will
get special training to investigate cases of dowry harassment,
acid-throwing against women by jilted lovers and rape.
"We can't say how many women officers there will be at the end of
this three-year project but eventually the ideal proportion would be at
least 30 percent," Kabir said.
Bangladesh, the world's third-largest Muslim-majority country,
recruited its first women police officers in 1974.
"We've taken up the project to recruit more women and strengthen
the capacity of the police forces," Inspector General of Bangladesh
Police Asraful Huda said.
The UNDP and the Department for International Development have financed
the lion's share of the project, Kabir said.
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