Female Peacekeepers - 20 min [18 June 2007]
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Script
It is Monday afternoon in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. A huge security operation is about to begin. Soon a suburb will be surrounded and searched for weapons and drugs. The team is a mix of local police, UN advisors, and as something entirely new, a group of indian police woman in charge of security. For the very first time the UN has created an entirely female unit.
Slobodan Radulovic:
we strike criminal hideouts, it is two houses - we finised the rekey yesterday the targets are actually like before - weapons and drugs. The role of foreign policeforce today are to give armed backup for LNP (Libia national police) they are not armed.
The Indian officers have been in Liberia since the end of January. They are a very rare sight in a world where weapons are mostly used by men. But 20 years ago India saw the need for a female police force and today there are two battalions with 2200 woman.
Seema Dhundia
Most of our batalion it remained deployed in counteringency areas like Jamur Kasmir of India. So you know our organisation is quite experienced in handling such kind of situations.
Tanushree Sinsha
Female have a good understanding level. When men loose there temper - female never do. Whenever working for a peaceproces the thinking level of woman is very helpful - I think so.
And with 20 years of experience as a female battalion in an India with frequent and difficult operations in for example the troubled province of Kashmir - the woman have great confidence and insight in the task ahead.
Seema Dhundia
In a postconflict scenario like here in Liberia - if you have female troops who are competent enough, that are trained enough, who are having all kind of sofisticated equipment - i mean you are bringing the female officers who are very competent for their profession, and it’s in their inherrent quality that they are very compasionate, they are caring, so in order to implement all sorts of peacekeeping and humanitarian programs - I think woman are the best options.
But there is also another very important reason why the UN has sent in an entirely female unit in Liberia. For many years the UN has had a big problem with UN personal abusing woman. And in Liberia there have been a lot of cases - last year 30 cases and the year before 45. And this among other things is where the Indian woman will help to make a change.
Joana Foster, Senior Gender Advisor, UN Mission in Liberia
In the old days armies always had campfollowers. And the fractions that fought here abducted woman, exploited woman etc. It used to be a part of the military proces. So now what the UN needs to do and is doing very greatly is to make quite sure that everybody who comes are aware that it is wrong, there is a zero tolerance on it from the Secretary General. And as I said we now have a conduct and discipline unit who’s job is to make quite sure that people is aware that it is wrong, and that if they are court in that proces they are dealt with quite severely.
The abuse of woman and children are one of the single biggest problems in Liberia. There's probably no other country where woman are being abused in this scale.
Joanna Foster
During the war it was really quite bad. Some research that was done by WHO and IRC which are the international rescue comitee showed that 93,9 % of woman that were in Liberia during the war were sexual abused or abused in generel you know beating up and all sort of things. Of that 73 % of them were actually raped during the war. so you can imagine the high tolerance of violence against woman were left behind after the war, so it carried on. And also don’t forget that discriminative aditute feeds this problem of violence against woman.
The civil war ended three years ago when the UN sent in its troops. But since then there has been little development and 14 years of war have created a very rough society. The 3.2 million inhabitants have experienced the war at close hand - and especially many women have paid a very high price. During the war rape was a common weapon.
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia
To be very frank. It was very tough. It put a stick mark un us - you know during the fighting there were so many problems with rape and abuse of woman, you know it had a bad impact on our mind.
Marie O. Slocum/Policestudent, Liberia
So many fighting, so many shotings and killings. Raping children and woman - many things.
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia
I was embarrassed when the war was fighted. I was arrested striped naked because they said I was a part of the late president Doe. They striped me naked and carried me all the way to the seeside to fire (shoot) me but one of the commanders he looked at me and said were are releasing you - I left and they released me. That was my experience.
Joanna Foster
Post conflict you got everything has gone wrong - there is no system, there is no system to respond to the situation. There is an enormous poverty, and then you find that there is old traditions and discriminative practices. That all fuels this violence against woman. So you get two. You got the high tolerance of violence because of the war and then you have the discriminative and traditional attitudes all feeding into this - so you can imagine - I wolden’t be surprised if there are a lot more reports of violence against woman than during the war - or maybe at the same level. So this is quite a problem
In Liberia the Indian peacekeepers are part of a huge UN operation. The last three years about 15.000 UN soldiers and police officers have tried to keep a peace in a country that is so destroyed by war that almost nothing is working. And where the tensions are still lurking under the surface. Together with the government of Liberia the UN is trying to get the woman to take the lead to ensure the future of this fragile country.
Tanushree Sinsha
Whenever you want to educate a country, first you educate the girlchild, and later the mother. Being female it is very obvious that you can make pupils aware that female are also required to be educated, to be put on some field. To be available to do everything that is happening in society. So it’s a good sign whenever someone will se that female are working in some fields they will be inspired by them.
In an attempt to educate both local police but also other UN units it is the women that bear arms in the capital Monrovia.
Right now it is foreign forces that guarantee the peace in Liberia. The local units have to be build from scratch and through huge campaigns the UN has tried to get women to sign up.
This is the Liberian police academy. It is 6 am but the future police officers are already up and running.
They are busy. Because Liberia is in great need of a new police force. During the war it was the police that was responsible for many of the atrocities and therefore they were sacked after the war. Everything had to be rebuilt from scratch and it has been very difficult to get people to join up. Especially women have stayed away from this typically male dominated job.
Prosper Ahlijah/UN-chief of Policeacademy
It was not easy, even from the point of getting recruits. Because it appears that the mentality of the citizens were that police officers were nothing, they don’t respect them, and therefore they were not willing to come. So sometimes we had to go begging. But it appears that there are awareness no and they are coming.
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia
We found that there were so many rape issues. As woman are getting involved in the police force it will be our primarely duty to tackle those issues. Bringing the perpetrators to justice - let them pay for what they have done.
It is very much important because when we look at our past history in Liberia we found that female was venerable to the crimes, to the rape and discriminations. and today UNMIL have come to introduce that woman can be involved, so that we can erase those mentalities that people had in the past. Those traditions that woman was lees important, and men were over important. So it is important that we form a part of this unique organisation.
The UN wants 20 % of the future police force to be female, and after the arrival of the Indian peacekeepers things have started to move in the right direction.
Joanna Foster
They already had a great impact in that when we were trying to get woman to join the police. It has been very very hard to get to the target. And when we introduced the special missions of getting woman to be coached so that they could get their high school diploma so that they could enter the police academy. Before the indian woman came, we had about 112 that have applied go go through this proces. Within three weeks after the woman arrived infact lees, and there was a lot of publicity about it, the number raised to 360. So as role models they already had impact on the woman in Liberia. So the woman in Liberia now think if they can be police, I can be a police, so they are now joining, so that is a great impact.
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia
I feel very happy, because if I can see my female friends in the police were coming to give us instructions, I feel happy to receive it, and hear that they are here.
The trainees live on campus for 6 months during which they must get ready for their new job. And that is extremely difficult because everything must be learned from scratch. There is no basic understanding for civil rights and police methods.
sound bite
So the officers has to listen actively to the complainant.
Because the problem with sex crimes are so huge women are extremely important for the police. But so many things must be learned.
The local police is not yet ready to take charge in Liberia. Today they operate without weapons, with two UN advisors by their side and two female Indian peacekeepers as security.
sound bite
You stop with this.
One year ago Liberia was the first country in Africa to elect a female president.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
My administration should endeavor to give Liberian woman promince in all affairs of our country. We will empower Liberian woman in areas of our national life
And she has appointed a long line of women on very important posts. There are female ministers, and as a very important signal, the president appointed a woman to lead the police force - and even though development is slow - she manages to move things in the right direction.
Mona Beatrice Sieh/Chief of Police, Liberia
During the war things went out of control. So not I know a little bit of that, and know what went on during the war, so I can compare and contrast - knowing the abuses that our citizens went through during the war, I’m able to be sensitive to the citizens of this country. And at the same time to be able to talk and counsel my officers, the ones that have come with good will to restructure, to accept certain level of insult because the citizens were hurt by certain police those days, so the confidence were difficult to build, but so far it has been very well.
The operation we followed was quite peaceful. Not one shot was released. In half an hour more than 20 men was arrested. Most of them released immediately after. They were taken because they were in a house where drugs were found, but the kingpin was gone when the police arrived.
Tanushree Sinsha
It all happend very quickly and all my team members have done their job very swiftly. - it was good.
Joanna Foster
Woman we got some special skills. Men have got also some special skills. Some of the skills can be trained in all of us. But as I said, woman often got much better skills at negotiating - you know. You men tend to be a little more macho. When you have a few more woman it actually turns down the militaristic attitude, and it turns down the macho attitude.
Our visit to the Indian camp is in many ways like a visit to any other military camp with barbwire and armed guards, but nevertheless the atmosphere is a bit different.
sound bite
Please raise hands all of you that are married.
Many of women are mothers and their thoughts are with their families.
Seema Dhundia
Keep yourself mentally and physically fit. And don’t worry about your family and your kids, because they are all fine there.
Back at the Liberian police they very well aware of nature of the task ahead of them when the UN moves on. But they look at the future with cheer and the women of Liberia are ready to fight for peace.
Mona Beatrice Sieh/Chief of Police, Liberia
There has been a tremendous changes for better. I mean even the men salute the females. the men are assisting us, we are being so strong. Normally we are being the brains behind husbands anyway, and now we are being the secretaries, the special assistants. We are running the country. Now is our time to take the front role
Slobodan Radulovic/Policeadvisor, UN; 00:43]
Seema Dhundia/ Contigent Commander; 01:36]
Tanushree Sinsha/ Platoon leader; 01:47]
Seema Dhundia/ Contigent Commander; 02:30]
Joanna Foster/ Gender Advisor, UN; 03:25]
CIVILWAR LIBERIA 2003; 05:23]l
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia; 06:08]
Marie O. Slocum/Policestudent, Liberia; 06:26]
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia; 06:35]
CIVILWAR LIBERIA 2003; 07:07]
Joanna Foster/ Gender Advisor, UN; 07:11]
Tanushree Sinsha/ Platoon leader; 08:36]
Prosper Ahlijah/UN-chief of Policeacademy; 10:40]
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia; 11:12]
Joanna Foster/ Gender Advisor, UN; 12:25]
Dretha B. Nimely/Policestudent, Liberia; 13:28]
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf/President, Liberia ; 14:35]
Mona Beatrice Sieh/ Chief of Police, Liberia; 15:09]
Tanushree Sinsha/Platoon leader ; 16:22]
Joanna Foster/Gender Advisor, UN; 16:38]
Seema Dhundia/Contigent Commander; 17:38]
Mona Beatrice Sieh/Chief of Police, Liberia; 18:00]
Credits
Directed by Søren Bendixen
Filmed by Finn Vest Christensen
Edited by Torben Kjaersgaard Madsen
Executive editor Danish Broadcasting Corporation
Kim Bildsøe Lassen
Production Company
Danmarks Radio