Rwanda’s continued gender sensitivity has seen at least 9 female police officers join a contingent of 160 police officers under the Formed Protection Unit (FPU).
The contingent which has left for Jérémie town in southern Haiti will be under the command of Chief Superintendent, Toussaint Muzezayo.
“Rwanda has been ranked first by Department of Peacekeeping Operations(DPKO) in female contributions in UN missions,” Police spokesperson Supt. Theos Badege has said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a campaign in August 2009 to lift the percentage of women peacekeepers to 20 percent in police units by 2014, and to 10 percent in military contingents.
It is estimated that only 2.3 percent of the 88,661 military peacekeepers serving in 17 different missions are women, whereas in 2008 they made up 2.18 percent of military contingents.
It has been also reported that approximately 8.2 percent of the 13,221 UN police are women, a figure that jumped from 6.5 percent in April.
In 2000, Resolution 1325 of the UN Security Council called on the Secretary-General to progress on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions and all other aspects related to women and girls.
Subsequent Security Council resolutions outlined more comprehensive methods for using peacekeeping missions to protect women and girls from sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict zones, including increasing the number of women peacekeepers.
The first all-female Formed Police Unit (FPU), was deployed in Liberia in 2007, where a significant difference to the women victimized in rampant sexual violence during the country’s civil war was attained.
A five-year campaign to boost the number of UN female peacekeepers was also launched though not many countries have equally involved in realizing the campaign.
Early last year, the United Nations Police Commissioner General, Ann-Marie Orler, visited Rwanda appreciating Rwanda’s gender sensitivity and called upon nations to contribute towards female recruitment or sending to peacekeeping mission.
She announced that the DPKO Police Division had taken up a drive to recruit more female police officers, that targets 20 percent in 2014 from 8 percent 2009, with a long-term goal of having a 50-50 ratio of men to women.
The second Rwandan contingent to Haiti will replace another 160 police officers that were deployed nine months ago, whose mission has ended and expected to be in the country by December 31.
FPUs, among others, provide humanitarian assistance, conduct patrols and guard VIPs and key installations.
Currently, there are 416 police officers on mission in Sudan, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Haiti.
As at October 2011, it was estimated that 1,342 female police officers represented about 9.4% of the total police deployment of 14,239.
This reflected a marginal improvement over the participation of female police in peacekeeping. This improvement also covered participation in FPU.
However, a number of African member states appear to have taken on the challenge of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security, by deploying all-female contingents.
African examples include Namibian Police Force (31 females in UNAMID), Rwanda (89 in Darfur), Tanzania (25 in Darfur) and Ghana (35 in Darfur).
ENDS
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