Women in ANP - What Now?

Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization

March 2015 Project Report

Women in Afghan National Police: What Now?

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Acknowledgements This research for this report was commissioned by UNDP/LOTFA for the project “Policewomen Mentorship Project” (PWMP). PWMP was a consortium of five organizations, coordinated by Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization (APPRO), working together to identify the key current challenges faced by women in Afghan National Police and devise ways in which these challenges could be overcome. The consortium members were: APPRO, Afghan Women’s Skills Development Center (AWSDC), Justice for All, Medica Afghanistan, and Women for Afghan Women (WAW). The sites of this project were Jalalabad, Herat, Kabul, Kunduz, and Mazar-‐e-‐Sharif. About the Researchers

The APPRO researchers for this project were, in alphabetical order, Ahmad Shaheer Anil, Eddy Berson, Nafasgul Karimi, Mariam Morid, Saeed Parto, Zarghona Saifi, Mohsin Usyan, and Ismail Zahidi. This paper was compiled by Saeed Parto and Lucile Martin, based on three background papers prepared by Eddy Berson, Mariam Morid, and Saeed Parto. APPRO is grateful to all governmental and non-‐governmental individuals who agreed to be interviewed for this research and/or participated in the focus group discussions. APPRO is particularly indebted to Suzana Paklar of UNDP/LOTFA for her support and guidance throughout the project and the Consortium member organizations for their tireless efforts in assisting policewomen to overcome their many challenges. About APPRO

Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization (APPRO) is an independent social research organization promoting social and policy learning to benefit development and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. APPRO is a non-‐profit, non-‐government organization, headquartered in Kabul, Afghanistan, with satellite offices in Herat, Mazar-‐e Sharif, Jalalabad, and Kandahar. APPRO’s mission is to provide insights on how to improve performance against the development milestones set by the Afghan government and international donors. APPRO conducts applied research, carries out evaluations, and provides training on policy analysis, Monitoring and Evaluations, advocacy, and research methods. For more information, see: www.appro.org.af Contact: [email protected] Cover Photo: Hoshang Hashimi – AP: http://www.startribune.com/galleries/142769415.html APPRO takes full responsibility for all omissions and errors. © 2015. Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization. Some rights reserved. This publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted only for non-‐commercial purposes and with written credit to APPRO and the authors. Where this publication is reproduced, stored or transmitted electronically, a link to APPRO’s website at www.appro.org.af should be provided. Any other use of this publication requires prior written permission which may be obtained by writing to: [email protected]

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List of Abbreviations

ALP Afghan Local Police ANA Afghan National Army ANDS Afghan National Development Strategy ANP Afghan National Police ANPS Afghan National Police Strategy AOG Armed Opposition Groups APPRO Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization Arbakai/ALP Afghan Local Police AWN Afghan Women’s Network AWSDC Afghan Women Skills and Development Centre CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Consortium AWSDC, Medica, WAW, JFAO and APPRO CID Criminal Investigation Department CSO Civil Society Organization CSTC-‐A Combined Security Transition Command for Afghanistan DDR Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration DI DynCorps International DoWA Department of Women Affairs EU European Union EUPOL European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan EVAW Law Elimination of Violence Against Women Law FRU Family Response Unit GoIRA the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan GPPO German Police Project Organization GPPT German Police Project Team IC International Community ICPCR International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights IPCB International Police Coordination Board IPM Integrated Policing Mission ISAF International Security Assistance Force JCMB Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board JFAO Justice for All Organization JSSP Justice Sector Support Programme LOTFA Law and Order Trust Fund – Afghanistan Medica Medica Afghanistan MoCIT Ministry of Communication and Information Technology MoI Ministry of Interior Affairs MoIC Ministry for Information and Culture MoJ Ministry of Justice MoWA Ministry of Women Affairs NAPWA National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan NCO Non commissioned officer NTM-‐A NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan PD Police District PWMP Police Women Mentorship Project

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SSR Security Sector Reform UN United Nations UNAMA PAU United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan Police Advisory Unit UNDP/LOTFA United Nations Development Program / Law and Order Trust Fund – Afghanistan UNFPA United Nations Population Fund for Afghanistan UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution VAW Violence Against Women WAW Women for Afghan Women

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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations............................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 5

1. Introduction........................................................................................................................ 6

2. Mainstreaming Gender in Afghan National Police ............................................................... 8 2.1. Women in ANP .......................................................................................................................... 9 2.2. Challenges in Recruitment ....................................................................................................... 10 2.3. Challenges in Professionalization of ANP ................................................................................. 11 2.4. Looking Ahead......................................................................................................................... 12

3. Key Issues For Policewomen in ANP .................................................................................. 13 3.1. Reporting Cases of Violence Against Women........................................................................... 13 3.2. Illiteracy .................................................................................................................................. 14 3.3. Inadequate Female-‐designated Facilities at Police Stations...................................................... 14 3.4. Allocation of Menial Tasks to Policewomen............................................................................. 15 3.5. Security of Policewomen ......................................................................................................... 15 3.6. Harassment ............................................................................................................................. 16 3.7. Negative Perception of Policewomen ...................................................................................... 16

4. Future Programming......................................................................................................... 17 4.1. Strategic Support For MoI and ANP ......................................................................................... 17 4.2. Policewomen as Change Agents............................................................................................... 17 4.3. Operating Environment for Policewomen................................................................................ 17

5. Conclusion and Recommendations ................................................................................... 18 5.1. Awareness............................................................................................................................... 19 5.2. Advocacy................................................................................................................................. 19 5.3. Mentoring ............................................................................................................................... 20 5.4. Outreach ................................................................................................................................. 20

Appendix: Internal Assessment of PWMP ............................................................................. 22 Accomplishments........................................................................................................................... 23 External.............................................................................................................................................. 23 Internal .............................................................................................................................................. 24

Challenges...................................................................................................................................... 25 External.............................................................................................................................................. 25 Internal .............................................................................................................................................. 25

Lessons Learned ............................................................................................................................. 26 Ways Forward ................................................................................................................................ 27

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Executive Summary

Since 2001 substantial steps have been taken to increase the representation of women in all facets of life in Afghanistan. All key development and reconstruction objectives for Afghanistan include a gender component. The Government of Afghanistan, under international pressure, has committed to several international protocols on women’s rights. In 2003 Afghanistan was one of the first Islamic countries to ratify the Convention on Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Gender equality is assured formally in Afghanistan’s Constitution and is a crosscutting theme in the Governance, Human Rights and Rule of Law Pillar of Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS). In August 2009, the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law was signed as a presidential decree to provide the legal foundation to defend and protect women’s rights. Starting in 2011, much attention has been focused on operationalizing the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security, passed by all UN member states in 2000. The development of Afghanistan’s National Action Plan for UNSCR 1325 is expected to be launched in February/March 2015, with practical considerations for the women in the security forces. A major component in these efforts has been increasing the number of women in Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF), particularly in the Afghan National Police (ANP), resulting in a slow but steady increase in the number of policewomen. The presence of women in ANP, while meeting the objective of creating spaces for women in the workforce and contributing to the performance of policing functions, has brought to fore, and created, new challenges for the policy makers behind this move, ANP, and ANP’s female officers and staff. At the same time, despite the low number of women in ANP at less than one percent of the total force, the entrance of women into ANP has created a fertile ground for action to institutionalize the presence of women in the workforce through future programming to professionalize ANP. This paper highlights some of the major barriers to the professionalization of policewomen in ANP, assesses the impact and sustainability of initiatives to support policewomen, and identifies entry points for future interventions to strengthen the presence and increase the number of women in ANP.

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1. Introduction

Since 2001 substantial steps have been taken to increase the representation of women in all facets of life in Afghanistan. All key development and reconstruction objectives in Afghanistan include a gender component. In 2003 Afghanistan was one of the first Islamic countries to ratify the Convention on Elimination on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), without reservations.1 Gender equality is assured formally in Afghanistan’s Constitution and is a crosscutting theme in the Governance, Human Rights and Rule of Law Pillar of Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS).2 In August 2009, the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) law was signed as a presidential decree to provide the legal foundation to defend and protect women’s rights.3 The Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), with support from UNIFEM/UN Women, was a key actor in formulating the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA), ratified by the Government of Afghanistan in May 2008 and expected to eliminate discrimination against women, develop women’s human capital, and promote women's leadership.4 The creation of ANDS and NAPWA, the promotion of female leadership opportunities, and the ratification of CEDAW and EVAW are direct products of efforts to formalize gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan.5 Setting targets to enter women into the Afghan National Police (ANP) must thus be seen as part and parcel of regulatory reform process since 2001 to create and institute public and professional spaces for women in Afghan society. In 2009 the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoI) introduced the Directive on Female Recruitment, followed by the Directive on Harassment (2013), and a draft Gender Policy (2013) with a focus on the prevention of violence against women and children. However, similar to all other formal regulatory measures, these attempts have faced, and are likely to continue to face, numerous challenges in implementation. In recognition of the difficulties in raising the number of women in ANP to 5,000 by 2015, MoI’s Ten Year Vision (2013/2014 – 2023/2024) has revised its plan and currently calls for measures to transform ANP into a civilian police force using community policing approaches. The target for the number of women in MoI and ANP set by the Ten Year Vision is ten percent of the total.6 At the formal institutional level, there are mandatory quotas for women in the lower house of Parliament (Wolesi Jirga) and the upper house of Parliament (Meshrano Jirga). In the lower house at least 68 seats out of 249 seats are reserved for women. In the upper house at least 50 percent of one-‐third of the seats appointed by the President (at least 17 out of 102 seats) are to be held by women.

1 Farhoumand-‐Sims Chesmark. “CEDAW and Afghanistan.“ Journal of International Women Studies 11, no.1 (November 2009):136. Accessed February 15, 2013. http://www.bridgew.edu/soas/jiws/nov09/Cheshmak.pdf

2 See Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The Constitution of Afghanistan. (2004) pagers 1, 12, 14, 25 and Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Afghanistan National Development Strategy – Interim Strategy for Security, Governance, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction. (2004) 16, 52, 90-‐94

3 However, since mid-‐2013 there has been an ongoing debate in the Parliament on significant, conservatively oriented, changes to EVAW.

4 NAPWA (2009). 5 ANDS, finalized in 2008, identified gender mainstreaming as a cross-‐cutting theme. 6 Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoI), Ten Year Vision Plan http://ipcb.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/13-‐04-‐02-‐ten-‐year-‐vision-‐english-‐final-‐version.pdf. Ten percent of ANP is equals to around 16,000 women, an unrealistic target by all accounts.

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These quotas were further strengthened by the 2010 Electoral Law, which also mandated the allocation of at least 25 percent of the seats in each provincial council to be reserved for women.7 Starting in 2011, much attention has been focused by Afghanistan’s international donors on operationalizing the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), passed by all UN member states in 2000. UNSCR 1325 was adopted to support, encourage, and protect women and girls’ participation in peace-‐building processes in countries undergoing post-‐conflict reconstruction. The rationale for involving women in the peace process is based on the fact that women and children make up the majority of victims of conflict and war. The Resolution calls for institutional arrangements to increase women’s representation at national, regional, and international levels of decision making on conflict resolution. Women’s participation would ensure the protection of women’s rights in the electoral system, law enforcement mechanisms, and the judiciary. The resolution also urges the expansion of the role of women in the military and civilian police.8 In response to UNSCR 1325, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has developed the National Action Plan 1325, together with officials from other main ministries and support from international donors through UN Women.9 The intention of the Plan is to define a roadmap for implementing UNSCR 1325’s objectives on women, peace, and security (WPS) in Afghanistan. Despite these significant reforms and provisions at the formal regulatory level, the case of Afghanistan demonstrates quite clearly that devising new laws, changing existing laws, or introducing affirmative action through establishing quotas in areas where discrimination against women is most serious are not sufficient for addressing the fundamental causes of discrimination against women. For example, a report by UNAMA in 2012 states that although there have been noticeable improvements due to the implementation of the EVAW law by prosecutors and primary courts in their handling of violence against women’s cases, the application of EVAW has remained far from adequate.10 There remain major challenges in all gender mainstreaming efforts in Afghanistan.11 In 2011 Afghanistan ranked the most dangerous country for women and worst in health, physical violence, and lack of access to economic resources.12 The persistence of conservative cultural norms on the place of women in society in Afghanistan has meant that the vast majority of cases of domestic violence against women remain unreported and undocumented. Restrictive cultural norms often compound the problems of women who fall victim to high levels of violence. In the vast majority of cases of violence against women, the victims are either hesitant to turn to the police for help or are prevented from doing so by their immediate family members, particularly if the police authorities receiving the complaints are male and if going to the police results in the case becoming a public issue and thus disgracing the family. Female victims of

7 Subsequently, in 2013, the percentage quota for women on provincial councils was reduced from 25 to 20 percent.

8 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, available at: http://www.un.org/events/res_1325e.pdf 9 As of March 2015 this document has not been released. 10 UNAMA (December 2012), available at: http://unama.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Qy9mDiEa5Rw%3D&ta

11 This introduction is based on an ongoing review of the literature by APPRO on gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan since 2001 and has close similarities to and repetitions from other papers authored by APPRO, including the baseline report for this project, available from: http://appro.org.af/preview/women-‐in-‐anp-‐a-‐baseline-‐assessment/ .

12 http://www.trust.org/documents/womens-‐rights/resources/2011WomenPollResults.pdf, accessed May 14, 2013.

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violence who win their cases through the formal justice system are in the vast majority of cases ostracized in their communities and do not have access to formal support mechanisms to rebuild their lives afterwards. Attending to women-‐centred violence in the gender-‐biased context of Afghanistan must thus be based on the recognition that women’s security needs are higher than, and different from, those of men. The gradual deterioration in overall security conditions since 2006 has increased the risk for a number of earlier gains in gender mainstreaming. In practical terms all legislative, regulatory, and legal provisions to protect and promote Afghan women remain, by and large, idealistic visions and documents with unrealistic targets and timeframes for implementation. As such, just as easily as the policy and other formal commitments on women’s rights were written down, they could be ignored or rewritten to dis-‐empower women as the debate on changing the EVAW law, the reduction of the quota for female provincial councils, and the continued under-‐representation of women in the formal peace process clearly demonstrate.

2. Mainstreaming Gender in Afghan National Police

A key component of gender mainstreaming efforts at the formal level has been a slow but steady increase in the number of policewomen the Afghan National Police (ANP) since 2005. The presence of women in ANP, while meeting the objective of creating spaces for women in the workforce and contributing to the performance of policing functions, has brought to fore, and created, new challenges for the policy makers behind this move, ANP, and ANP’s female officers and staff. At the same time, despite the low number of women in ANP at less than one percent of the total force, the entrance of women into ANP has created a fertile ground for action to institutionalize the presence of women in the workforce through future programming to professionalize ANP. Recognizing the opportunities and challenges associated with the presence of women in ANP, the Policewomen Mentorship Program (PWMP) was designed with the intent to take stock of the current situation policewomen face with ANP and, in collaboration with women’s rights civil society organization, address some of the immediate challenges relating to working conditions, grievance procedures, recruitment, and promotion. PWMP was 15-‐month program ending in February 2014, funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA), being implemented by a consortium of civil society organizations. The Consortium was made up of Afghanistan Public Policy Research Organization (APPRO), Afghan Women’s Skills Development Center (AWSDC), Justice for All Organization (JFAO), Medica Afghanistan (MA), and Women for Afghan Women (WAW). The program was implemented in the five urban areas of Jalalabad, Herat, Kabul, Kunduz and Mazar-‐e-‐Sharif. Specifically, PWMP was designed to:

1. Strengthen policewomen in performing professional roles to increase access to justice, especially for women and children

2. Improve understanding and capacity of policemen in dealing appropriately and professionally with policewomen and female victims of violence, and

3. Raise awareness of communities about the necessary role of policewomen. Under PWMP, the Consortium partners conducted a total of 853 training and 139 mentoring sessions across 5 provinces. Training sessions included the following modules: (1) Rights of Women and Children in Islam, (2) Human Rights, Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights under the Afghan Law and obligations

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of the State, (3) Role and Duties of the Police According to Afghan Law, (4) Violence Against Women and Children in the Afghan Society, (5) Police Skills in Dealing with Women and (6) Counter Trafficking. The most significant results of PWMP were those that at the outcome level (i.e. results beyond the activity level). These included changes in the knowledge, skills, and attitude of policewomen and policemen, changes in community attitudes toward ANP, and changes within ANP resulting in more responsive infrastructure planning to suit the needs of policewomen. The strongest changes to occur, as reported by the policemen and policewomen, were those observed in the policewomen themselves in terms of increased confidence and willingness to engage in attempts to resolve work-‐related issues. The strongest improvements were observed in women’s knowledge of legal rights under the Afghan law and Islam, children’s rights, and the enforcement of these rights. There was also a noted increase in the attention paid to distinguishing between suspects and different forms of crime, treatment of crime suspects, use of referral services for women and children, and use of mediation skills in resolving domestic disputes. The focus of the analysis in this paper is to identify some of the major barriers for policewomen, the impact and sustainability of initiatives to support policewomen, and entry points for future interventions to strengthen the presence and increase the number of women in ANP. Based on ongoing observation in a period of 15 months, from September 2012 to January 2014, interviews with key informants, and monitoring reports by partner organizations of PWMP, this paper highlights the key issues that have arisen since women entered ANP and the initiatives taken by a range of actors, including the policewomen, to overcome them. Other data sources for this paper are the baseline assessment of the situation of women in ANP carried out by APPRO in late 2012 and early 2013, an earlier unpublished report by APPRO on ANP from 2010, and a report by Oxfam on women and ANP in late 2013.13 The Appendix to this paper contains the key findings from a critical self-‐assessment carried out by the Consortium partner organizations. The inclusion of the findings from the self-‐assessment is intended to highlight lessons learned by the partner organizations in implementing PWMP and to inform future mentoring programming for women in ANP and other key sectors.

2.1. Women in ANP

The commitment by the Government of Afghanistan to increase gender equality with support from the international donors since 2001 has resulted in MoI committing to a target of 5,000 female police officers in ANP by March 2015.14 As Part of UNDP/LOTFA efforts, Japan supported the training of 200 female ANP recruits through in Turkey in 2014, and is expected to train another 400 recruits with higher education in 2015. On December 11, 2014 EUPOL and the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Afghanistan further signed a Memorandum of Understanding to create a Women’s Police College in Afghanistan, in an attempt to address the lack of in-‐country training facilities for women in ANP. The rationale for increasing the number of policewomen is based in part on the assumption that more policewomen would enable ANP to provide gender-‐sensitive services and to counteract violence against women. The commitment to increase the number of policewomen is also a response to the findings from the 2009 and 2011 UNDP Police Perception Surveys, according to which the public felt that

13 The baseline report is available from: http://appro.org.af/preview/women-‐in-‐anp-‐a-‐baseline-‐assessment/ 14 Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Ministry of Interior (2012). Afghan National Police Strategy, page 12.

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women’s cases were intentionally overlooked by policemen and that policewomen would be more suitable for handling cases involving women.15

2.2. Challenges in Recruitment

In 2005 ANP had 180 policewomen. By December 2014 the number had reached 1,800 out of a total of 157,000.16 With around one percent of ANP being female in 2014, there are concerns that recruiting women for ANP has been much slower than expected and increasing the rate of recruitment, and keeping policewomen in ANP, requires much more than setting optimistic targets to increase the number of female recruits. In addition, the focus on an increase in the total number of women in ANP needs to take account of the fact that most of the existing policewomen and the new recruits are likely to be stationed in urban centers, with the implication that lack of access by rural women to police services will remain as a major challenge. Women from urban centers are usually not allowed by their families to work in rural areas. At the same time women in rural areas are not allowed by their more conservative families to work for the police.17 To meet the Tashkeel quota for the rural areas, women are employed in the provincial center while the female-‐designated positions in rural areas are frequently filled by men.18 This situation deprives rural women from having a level of access to ANP comparable to urban women.19 Many Family Response Units (FRUs), established to meet the needs of women and children, do not have female staff. In part these constraints are due to the persistence of a negative perception of women in ANP. Two factors perpetuate this negative image. First, ANP has a historically negative reputation of being a ‘government militia’, particularly since the post-‐Soviet civil war. This view has been inadvertently reinforced through efforts to reform the security sector, which established ANP as civilian police with a minor paramilitary role (in comparison to the Afghan National Army – ANA). The public perception and the lack of large scale systematic civilian capacity development for ANP (at least until 2007) resulted in the police rarely being trusted by the public as a credible or trustworthy source for resolving community disputes and legal complaints. Second, working for the police is widely viewed as “men’s work”. Thus, policewomen regularly interacting with non-‐kin men and often sharing the same working space are looked upon with disapproval. In addition, there are rumors and reports of women being sexually harassed and abused, further reinforcing the negative public perception of policewomen as being “morally corrupt”.20 The majority of the women who join ANP do so not because of a commitment to serve but as a means of earning an income. Some female recruits do not even undergo an entire training course.21 Taken together these constraints severely undermine the effectiveness of female police officers in ANP and are

15 United Nations Development Programme – Afghanistan (2009:7). Police Perception Survey – 2009: The Afghan Perspective. (Kabul: UNDP). See also: United Nations Development Programme – Afghanistan (2011:17). Police Perception Survey – 2011: The Afghan Perspective. (Kabul: UNDP)

16 EUPOL, at: Cf. http://www.eupol-‐afg.eu/taxonomy/term/114 17 APPRO (2014), Women in Afghan National Police: A Baseline Assessment, available from: http://appro.org.af/preview/women-‐in-‐anp-‐a-‐baseline-‐assessment/

18 Tashkeel refers to the organizations staffing plan of the ANP. 19 APPRO (2014), Women in Afghan National Police: A Baseline Assessment. 20 Unpublished Report by APPRO (2010) on Women in the Afghan National Police. 21 Consortium Partners’ feedback session at the Afghan Women Skills and Development Center, February 27, 2013.

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likely to strengthen the negative image of women in ANP, and prevent qualified women from joining the police. According to some, the difficulties faced by female police officers could be resolved through the formation of a “female critical mass” in leadership positions.22 However, without adequate support and improvements in the conditions for policewomen it is unlikely that a mere increase in numbers will be sufficient to meet mainstreaming objectives for women in ANP.

2.3. Challenges in Professionalization of ANP

ANP remains poorly trained and insufficiently sensitized for dealing with complaints involving women and children’s rights. An extremely low number of female personnel in ANP of around one percent acts as a further deterrent to women approaching ANP for help. There is broad agreement within and outside ANP that it is easier for female officials to investigate complaints by women, especially if the complaints involve domestic violence or rape. However, in the overwhelming majority of all cases of women reporting violence to ANP, the first point of contact at the police station is male even when there are female officers present.23 It has now been established that having had a higher number of female officers in ANP since 2005 has increased the willingness of female victims to approach the police. This is borne out by a correlation between the increase in the number of policewomen and the increase in the number of crimes reported by women. The reported number of women who approached the police to complain about beatings for the six months of the year 2010-‐2011 eclipsed those in the whole year 2009-‐2010 in Herat, Balkh and Kabul while the number of policewomen more than doubled in all three provinces in the same period.24 Apart from being unwelcoming or unresponsive to women’s needs, more disturbingly, ANP itself has been implicated in criminality and violence directed against women. The forms of violence reported include sexual harassment and rape, threats directed at women’s shelters, and bribe taking – endemic in all spheres of life in Afghanistan including the police. According to one report, ANP was responsible for around 15 percent of known honor killings and sexual assaults from 2011 to 2013.25 Policewomen, as well as policemen, have been implicated in all forms of abuse.26 There are numerous cases of women’s arrests on the charge of running away from abusive homes and cases where the victim, often female, is presumed guilty until proven innocent, especially on charges of zená.27 In training programs on human rights both policemen and policewomen are on record for expressing misogynous ideas or are surprised to learn that, for example, running away from violence is not a criminal offence but a basic human impulse and right.28 Human Rights Watch has documented cases where FRU female staff members have sent girls and women back to their abusive homes or detaining them for running away when the women were seeking FRU’s protection.29 Documented examples of

22 Key informant interview, February 4, 2013. Similar points were made at the Consortium Partners’ feedback session at the Afghan Women Skills and Development Center, February 27, 2013.

23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Crisis Group, page 17. 26 APPRO (2010), unpublished report, page 18. 27 Zena refers to extramarital sex and is considered a serious honour crime, punished in some very conservative communities by stoning of the individuals involved.

28 An interview with a civil society representative, Kabul, October 18, 2010. 29 Human Rights Watch (2013). We have promises of the world.

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abuse include rape, threats directed at women’s shelters, and bribe-‐taking.30 Policewomen, as well as policemen, have been accused of abusive behavior toward female complainants and criminals, including allegations about some policewomen being involved in prostituting female prisoners.31 Institutional constraints, such as proportionately inferior professional postings for policewomen and inadequate and insufficient female-‐sensitive infrastructure and facilities, add to the hardship felt by policewomen in ANP. In terms of infrastructure, there is insufficient access to separate sanitary and changing facilities for women and minimal childcare facilities. Furthermore, women rarely have the same working equipment, such as tailor-‐made uniforms, computers, and desks and are usually not issued weapons, especially larger or more potent ones. Equally ranked male and female officers in ANP are not provided with comparably secure means of transport with senior female ANP officers often using public transportation to get to and from work, which places them at a much higher risk of becoming targets of terrorist attacks.32 The discrimination in posting is reinforced by the fact that policewomen in general have significantly lower levels education and illiteracy than men. In comparison to their male colleagues women usually occupy positions at lower ranks, such as non-‐commissioned officer or patrol, and are rarely put in leadership positions, often justified by the fact that women’s levels of literacy are inadequate for senior positions. Some policewomen are regularly engaged in housekeeping duties such as cleaning, cooking and serving tea.33

2.4. Looking Ahead

Despite ANP’s poor relationship with women and despite women’s poor access to police services, there are grounds for optimism. MoI has taken a number of initiatives to improve responsiveness to women’s needs including establishing departments for gender, human rights, and children’s rights within the ministry and in the Police Academy along with a strategy on how to utilize these measures. There are, in addition, female-‐staffed FRUs to address criminal and civil family-‐related issues and the commitment by MoI since 2010 to intensify the recruitment drive to increase the number of women in ANP. Compared to 2005 the role of policewomen had expanded by end of 2014 to beyond body searches, clerical functions, and acting as assistants to policemen. Policewomen currently staff Family Response Units and Gender Mainstreaming and Human Rights Units (GMU) established in 2008. Some policewomen have also joined Criminal Investigation Departments, Intelligence Units, Border Police and Counter Narcotics Units.34 Public perceptions of the ANP may also be changing for the better. According to a 2011 survey a number of women believe that ANP’s performance in their districts has improved. While “improved security or safety” was given as the most common reason behind this improvement, “improved attitude and respectfulness” was the second most commonly cited reason.35 In some ways the shortcomings of ANP

30 Crisis Group, Living with Violence: A National Report on Domestic Abuse in Afghanistan (2008), page 27. 31 APPRO (2010), unpublished report, page 18. 32 Interview with key informant from Laghman, June 5, 2013. 33 Unpublished Report by APPRO (2010), confirmed by a key informant interviewed on February 4, 2013. 34 APPRO (2010), unpublished report. 35 Samuel Hall (2011), Women’s Perceptions of Afghan National Police, available from: http://samuelhall.org/REPORTS/Gender%20Dynamics%20of%20Kabul%20Women%20and%20Police.pdf, page 23. This increase in the professionalism of ANP personnel in interactions with the public has been subsequently

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and the insensitivities women face in their interactions with the police reflect the position women occupy in the broader context of Afghan society. According to some, the police appear to be advancing more quickly in terms of recognizing women’s needs and rights than the Afghan society as a whole. Instances of failure by ANP to serve women are more a reflection of broader societal constraints imposed on women than administrative or technical failure by ANP.36 Keeping women in ANP and integrating their presence is likely to be a product of a more general professionalization process for ANP to become a fully functioning entity with women playing roles comparable to men, equal recognition of their contributions, and adequate remuneration. The next section highlights the most pertinent challenges faced by policewomen in ANP and some of the innovative ways in which the policewomen and other actors have attempted to overcome them.

3. Key Issues For Policewomen in ANP

The issues highlighted in this section are treated separately for simplifying the analysis but with full recognition that in reality all these and related issues are complex, multi-‐faceted, inter-‐related, and context dependent, varying from location to location throughout Afghanistan. The highlighted issues are drawn from previously released reports and numerous interactions through PWMP with policewomen and non-‐ANP actors regarding women in ANP. Each key issue identified by the respondents is described, followed by innovative measures taken by the policewomen and others to address them.

3.1. Reporting Cases of Violence Against Women

Reporting abuse, especially when it involves co-‐workers of the policewomen, is a highly sensitive and contentious issue. Reporting abuse and harassment cases can result in victimization of the complainant. Cases of sexual harassment can take a long time to be reported by the victims for fear of persecution by the perpetrators and stigmatization by family members and community. Also, once reported, sexual violence complaints can take a long time before they are addressed through a legal system that remains insufficiently sensitized to women’s needs and issues.37 Global Rights – Afghanistan, in close collaboration with the Policewomen Mentoring Program (PWMP) Consortium initiated a program of placing legal fellows in the Ministry of Interior Affairs as a means to have a transparent and consistent mechanism for follow up on reports of gender-‐based abuses directed at policewomen and to provide a forum for the victims to come to the fore and speak up against abuse. The legal fellows, working together with the Consortium members, established a database to record cases and prompt follow up action through the Gender and Human Rights Office (GHO) at MoI or the Consortium directly. For the four months since the establishment of the database in July 2013, seventeen cases of abuse had been reported by policewomen in Nangarhar, Kabul, Kunduz, Balkh, and Herat to either the Consortium members or the legal fellows. The recorded cases were monitored to ensure that they went through the justice system in a timely and transparent manner. confirmed in monitoring conducted by APPRO since late 2012. To review these monitoring reports, see: appro.org.af/publications/

36 Consortium Partners’ feedback session at the Afghan Women Skills and Development Center, February 27, 2013. Similar points have been made in Samuel Hall (2011), page i

37 Feeback from the Consotium partners, February 2013.

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The Consortium played a major role in establishing trust with the policewomen through regular contact and in the process of providing awareness training as part of PWMP. This initiative by the Consortium also created opportunities for Global Rights’ fellows to gain practical experience by working for women’s rights organizations, research organizations, FRUs, and MoI.

3.2. Illiteracy

The issue of illiteracy among women, and the problems faced by illiterate policewomen, is best captured in the baseline assessment conducted at the beginning of PWMP in late 2012 / early 2013:

Illiteracy remains a fundamental problem for policewomen despite the efforts of the international donors in providing literacy classes. Not all policewomen for whom literacy classes were organized attended classes on a regular basis. Some reported that literacy classes were offered irregularly. When asked why female officers did not attend literacy classes the response was that women simply ‘did not have the time’ and that if women were to attend courses there would be no women filling their policing duties.38

There have been two particularly innovative programs by UNAMA and UNESCO to address illiteracy among policewomen. The UNAMA mobile phone pilot program ustad mobile has been used to train policewomen based on the Afghan National Literacy Curriculum of the Ministry of Education. The curriculum has been adapted for access on smartphones with cameras.39 The availability of the curriculum on smartphones allows the women to participate in literacy classes in their own time and without having to worry about missing work. Other literacy programs for policewomen include the Literacy Empowerment for Afghanistan Police (LEAP), funded by the Government of Japan and implemented by MoI since 2011. LEAP is aimed at improving the quality of policing through increased literacy.40 The target beneficiaries of LEAP are higher level ANP officers. The ultimate aim of LEAP is to enable MoI to lead the implementation of literacy training by 2015.

3.3. Inadequate Female-‐designated Facilities at Police Stations

It is now widely recognized that insufficient and inadequate facilities are a major challenge for many policewomen. Where there are facilities designated for women, they are not exclusive to women. In Nangarhar, for example, female body-‐search rooms have been used to store weapons. Sanitary facilities, built away from main structures and isolated from offices, have been in the spotlight as places were policewomen have been, or are at the risk of being, harassed by some of their male colleagues. Doors to sanitary facilities or women-‐only changing rooms are often not lockable or have cracks and holes in them, making women hesitant to use them. In other cases, women-‐only sanitary facilities are being used by policemen. In many cases women avoid using sanitary facilities during working hours altogether There have been several attempts to overcome the issue of sanitary facilities for women. Women either go to the toilet in groups or stand guard for each other. In some cases a senior official holds the key to 38 APPRO (2014), Women in Afghan National Police. 39 UNAMA accessed on 28 August 2013 http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?ctl=Details&tabid=12254&mid=15756&ItemID=37134

40 UNICEF accessed on 27 November http://www.unesco.org/new/en/kabul/education/literacy-‐for-‐empowering-‐afghanistan-‐police-‐leap/

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women-‐only sanitary facilities to ensure that only women use the facilities. Policewomen’s Associations have been a platform for policewomen to share general, day-‐to-‐day, problems they face in ANP. Afghan policewomen in Kabul are reported to meet on a regular basis with EUPOL to raise collective concerns, which EUPOL then follows up. In Bamyan and Mazar-‐e-‐Sharif women’s councils have been set up by UNAMA. Also in Bamyan the Policewomen’s Association has succeeded in improving the number and conditions of female-‐friendly facilities. The district police station in Bamyan now has female-‐designated change rooms and bathrooms as well as a kindergarten.41

3.4. Allocation of Menial Tasks to Policewomen

Male police officers are reluctant to send policewomen to carry out routine police activities. Policewomen are often enlisted to perform duties unrelated to police work, including making tea, preparing lunch, and cleaning. Where women are promoted, the nature of their functions does not appear to change. Apart from body searches and some house searches, policewomen’s roles are mostly invisible to the public.42 This situation demoralizes women already in ANP, dissuades women from joining ANP, and dissuades female civilians from approaching ANP for fear of having to encounter male police officials. In some cases such as Mazar-‐e-‐Sharif, policewomen have raised this issue and sought corrective action from their superiors. One important exception is involving policewomen in outreach and safety programs for schools. Communities have been asking for more involvement by policewomen in community affairs including reaching out to girls’ schools and carrying out activities under the community policing scheme.43 Given the generally small scale of support that policewomen receive from the public, the communities’ demand for more involvement of policewomen is significant. Also, there have been initiatives to increase collaboration between policewomen and the health sector. In treating victims of abuse policewomen have had a key role in acting as intermediaries between the victims and health officials and the judiciary. In cases where abuse is to be reported to the family for the victim’s protection, policewomen play a crucial role in acting sensitively and confidentially toward the victim and the family of the victim. Policewomen and particularly FRUs have successfully acted in winning the trust of community members who are often suspicious of male ANP personnel and their involvement in intimate family matters. Possibly as a result, there is a rise in reported crime cases.44

3.5. Security of Policewomen

In more conservative regions of the country, women have expressed concerns about kidnappings, acid attacks, and other forms of physical violence against women as punishment for either having a public life or working for the government.45 Senior policewomen are particularly concerned about their safety, given the assassinations of two successive female police officials in Helmand, and two female officials in

41 Interview with key informant UNAMA. 42 APPRO (2014), Baseline Assessment. 43 Discussion with key informant from UNAMA 44 Discussion with key informant from UNAMA. 45 APPRO (2014), Baseline report.

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Laghman, both in 2013.46 There are also cases of less senior policewomen having been targets of assassinations.47 A lack of dedicated and secure transportation does not only cause policewomen hardship in terms of general job satisfaction but also increases security risks for policewomen. In Jalalabad and Balkh policewomen do not use official transport because of their association with ANP and the increased risk of being targets. In Balkh women did not want to be associated with ANP or the reckless driving of male ANP drivers on the road. In response to this, many policewomen take their own security measures. In Jalalabad some women wear civilian clothes and discreetly use public transportation for going to work. There have been no other notable measures by the policewomen themselves or by official bodies to address the transportation issue for policewomen.48

3.6. Harassment

There is much anecdotal evidence on sexual harassment within ANP. Most of these cases, however, are reported anonymously, which is indicative of the high risk faced by the complainants or victims becoming persecuted and stigmatized. The risk of being regarded as morally corrupt acts as a deterrent for policewomen to report sexual harassment by some male colleagues or superiors. Some policewomen utilized their contact with the PWMP Consortium Partners to register their complaints to LOTFA. Other policewomen in Mazar-‐e-‐Sharif reported that they carried recorders with them to record harassment advances as evidence in making their complaints.49 The focal points established within Policewomen’s Associations in Bamyan and Mazar-‐e Sharif also assisted the policewomen with registering complaints and reporting harassment cases. Another initiative in safeguarding women against harassment has been the successful demands by some policewomen to work in shared spaces with other women to deter harassers from singling them out.

3.7. Negative Perception of Policewomen

The shortcomings of ANP and the mistreatments to which women are subjected in their dealings with ANP reflect the disadvantaged position women occupy in the broader context of Afghan society. Initially, when women entered ANP the public perception was dismissive and negative. Over time, however, the public’s perception of policewomen has improved due largely to policewomen being more in view of the public, despite their limited number. The media has played a key role in drawing attention to the presence of women in ANP ranks and the services they can provide for their communities. Due to the continued presence of women in ANP, many policewomen and some men feel that the attitude of males is becoming more accepting and respectful of women within the ranks. Many

46 See Oxfam (2013), available from: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-‐173-‐afghanistan-‐women-‐police-‐100913-‐en.pdf

47 According to legal fellow/consortium log of reported abuse cases. 48 APPRO (2014), Baseline report. 49 Interview with legal fellows at APPRO.

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policewomen feel that their presence in public media could and should be stronger. When asked how this could be accomplished, policemen and policewomen felt strongly that in the years to follow 2014 the international community and the government must utilize media more effectively for portraying the positive contributions of women in ANP.

4. Future Programming

During PWMP the policewomen were asked to make suggestions on how to improve the conditions for women in ANP and strengthen their position in future programming. Similar questions were also asked of key informants from the government and the international donor organizations. The suggested actions may be grouped as follows.

4.1. Strategic Support For MoI and ANP

Sustainable change depends, first, on improved MoI institutional capacity to develop and follow through on strategies, action plans, policies and programs for women and policewomen in increasing awareness of women's rights, improving workplace conditions and facilities for policewomen (including mechanisms for dealing with harassment and abuse), improving career opportunities for women, and increasing the number of policewomen. Afghanistan’s international partners should provide technical assistance to MoI to not only address these specific needs, but also help MoI mainstream gender into ANP’s policies and programs more generally. Ideally, all international community assistance for women and policewomen in ANP should link up to formalized and specific ANP plans and strategies. Where plans and strategies do not exist or are inadequate efforts should be made to develop plans or strategies in close consultation and collaboration with the policewomen, policemen, and the numerous civil society organizations active in promoting good governance and women’s rights organizations protecting and promoting gender equality in Afghanistan.

4.2. Policewomen as Change Agents

PWMP provided an opportunity for policewomen to focus on their own learning and development and created a safe space for women to share their concerns and questions without reservation. This led to instances of policewomen coming together independently to overcome common challenges. For programming to be sustainable, change must be initiated by the policewomen and their organizations and not only driven by external organizations. Programming must, therefore, help to identify and empower female change agents within ANP to support endogenous change within the ANP with support from the government and its international donors.

4.3. Operating Environment for Policewomen

Sustainable change for women and policewomen requires pushing for further change in the wider Afghan society. There are numerous possibilities for much wider, and more effective, use of the media in drawing attention to the valuable services provided by the policewomen. Policewomen should be the

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focus of documentaries, interviews, and even drama programs centered on women’s issues and highlighting positive roles for policewomen. Media should also be used for strong community outreach activities and messaging to increase the public’s understanding of and support for the role of policewomen.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

There appears to be a positive correlation between the increase in the number of policewomen in ANP and the increase in the number of women approaching ANP for help. While the targets for increasing the number of women in ANP are unrealistic and not at all likely to be realized, every effort must be made to increase the number of policewomen and create a variety of incentives to encourage them to remain in ANP. Such incentives must include equal prospects of promotion for policemen and policewomen. There is a need for continued awareness changing training and mentoring, establishment of victim outreach mechanisms within and outside ANP, and internal and external rules and procedures to protect women in ANP and female victims from further victimization while in custody of ANP. These interventions must include a system of sanctions to be used against offences committed by ANP officers against the victims and a system of incentives to reward the male and female officers of ANP who protect the rights of the victims. Awareness changing interventions must go beyond formal sessions explaining what is meant by being a good police officer or what the rights of women are. Interventions must also address such fundamental issues as zena, according to which women involved in sex-‐related disputes or crimes, including being raped, are held responsible until proven not guilty. The exceptionally low number and percentage of policewomen in ANP has implications beyond the current lack of services available to Afghan women. The Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan has found, for example, that one of the primary reasons for the low registration of women to vote is the lack of policewomen at voter registration centers.50 Left unattended, the shortage of policewomen will act as a deterrent to women turning out to vote.51 Numerous programs are in place to further professionalization of ANP, support policewomen, and protect women’s rights through improved policing services. While these programs have achieved some results, given the scale of the challenges facing ANP, sustainability is not likely without continued support from the international community. At the start of the “transformational decade” in 2015, elaborate and specific measures will need to be initiated to assess core organizational capacities of ANP. The output of this assessment should be the identification of entry points for intervention to further institutionalize the presence and the key role of women in ANP and the professionalization of ANP as a whole.

50 June 2013 Voter Registration Observation Report. 51 It must be noted, however, that an unprecedented number of women came out to vote during the two rounds of elections in 2014. In part, this high turn out, an estimatd 38% of the 7-‐8 million voters, was due to special provisions made for making available over 10,000 female election monitors. The high turnout was also because the vast majoriy of those who turned out to vote, wanted to vote regardless of the high security threat.

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For the coming years, continued support will be needed for improving infrastructure for women and providing technical support similar in content to the training provided by EUPOL’s Justice Sector Support Program (JSSP) on domestic violence, sexual abuse, human rights, crime scene management, physical evidence recovery, and sensitive interviewing methods when dealing with victims and defendants. Emphasis will also need to be placed on awareness training outside ANP, advocacy, mentoring, and outreach. These programming components and how they could be utilized to professionalize ANP with and strengthen the position of women within ANP are described in more detail below.

5.1. Awareness

Given the public’s traditionally poor image of ANP, women’s poor relationship with the police, and conservative attitudes that both inhibit recruitment of women and create barriers for policewomen on the job, awareness is a crucial activity area for the police professionalization program. Initiatives should thus target the men and the women of various communities and the policemen and policewomen themselves. The link between gender-‐sensitive policing and community oriented policing, once established, could also develop the community’s demand for policewomen as a key component. Awareness activities targeting communities can take the form of information sessions, outreach sessions with policewomen present, and media campaigns. Information sessions involving policewomen and policemen and community leaders can be used as forums through which to alert the public to the importance of the role of policewomen in maintaining order, educate the public on women’s rights, and encourage women to seek redress through the formal justice system. Such interventions are enhanced when policewomen are present and can interact with the audience. Awareness raising forums are likely to raise the visibility, profile, and reputation of policewomen, give communities the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns, build trust and strengthen the public’s relationship with the police, and deepen the policewomen’s appreciation of the needs and the concerns of those whom they are to serve. Media campaigns can also serve as an effective means for reaching a broad swathe of the public, especially women, who have a high radio listenership in Afghanistan. This was attested by the bump in women enlisting to become police after awareness radio programs were broadcast in Kunduz under PWMP in 2013. To improve the working environment for policewomen, awareness sessions should target policemen, especially the senior officers and those in influential positions. A missing element from most gender awareness programming interventions in Afghanistan since 2001 has been the participation of men. This exclusion tends to exacerbate gender-‐based and domestic conflict as women’s expectations are raised without commensurate attitudinal change among the men, often resulting in men becoming suspicious or resentful of programs that target women exclusively.

5.2. Advocacy

While advocacy and awareness formed distinct activity areas under PWMP, advocacy would have been enhanced with a stronger awareness component. Consortium partners frequently reported low awareness and understanding of the ANP personnel about their role within the community. Under

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PWMP, advocacy generally involved intervening to remove specific barriers in the working environment for specific policewomen. This process would have been easier with a broader and more inclusive awareness component targeting policemen as well as policewomen, and the community about the importance of having female police personnel. In future programming in support of the policewomen in ANP, effort should be made to work more closely with police officials of higher ranks, and engaging with a wider range of actors across different agencies to prevent dependence on particular individuals to support the program objectives. In some cases it was reported that the interventions to assist policewomen were adversely affected when key individual facilitators or supporters resigned, changed positions, or were replaced. As part of the efforts to institutionalize the presence of women in ANP, performance appraisals should contain explicit elements to assess the level of effort by senior personnel in implementing gender sensitive approaches in managing their subordinates.

5.3. Mentoring

Training should be viewed as a starting point in a relatively long mentoring process during which subsequent trainings build on experiences gained and lessons learned from prior training. Consortium partners found that approaching issues from an Islamic perspective, as opposed to emphasizing the Afghan Constitution and international law, resonated more strongly with all audiences in ANP, male and female. Most participants were unaware of the international legislative contexts and conventions to which the Government of Afghanistan is committed. With ongoing mentoring, training material could be adapted to include more examples from the daily practices and experiences of the policewomen. There is a wealth of examples from the policewomen and the Consortium partners that could be incorporated into the training materials for future similar programming. These examples would make the formal training less rigid and more accessible for the participants. In future programming to professionalize policewomen, and ANP more broadly, all materials should be made available in Pashto, as well as Dari (as opposed to exclusively in Dari) and trainings should not repeat content from the police academy training – two common complaints reported by the Consortium partners. The training sessions should be used as platforms for policewomen to share their experiences, instructive stories, concerns, and how some of these concerns could be overcome through initiatives by the policewomen. This would involve setting aside more time for less formal discussions to inform the development of participant-‐centered training methodologies involving other policewomen and representatives from other organizations to participate in, and conduct, training sessions. The advantage of ongoing mentoring is that it can become an integrated aspect of policewomen’s daily routines and work rather than classroom-‐based training, which could be viewed as adding to the existing workload of the participants.

5.4. Outreach

There are a number of cases of policewomen going on school visits to inform female students of employment opportunities for women in ANP. There are also policemen placed at girls’ high schools to protect schoolgirls from harassment. Such visits should also be used to demonstrate for the students the

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ways in which policewomen and men are playing crucial roles in protecting girls’ right to education and maintaining public order in the new Afghanistan.

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Appendix: Internal Assessment of PWMP

Toward the end of PWMP in January 2014, the Consortium partners met and agreed to conduct a critical assessment of the project, the key challenges faced, corrective actions taken, and lessons learned for future similar programming and intervention by the Government of Afghanistan, international donors, or other consortia tasked with mentoring women in ANP. The most significant results of PWMP are those that occurred at the outcome level (i.e. results beyond the activity level). For example, some of the policewomen who had admitted to using physical violence with suspects stated that they discontinued this practice after participation in PWMP. The policewomen also stated that the ongoing mentoring provided by the Consortium partners gave them a much better understanding of their roles, taught them how to file complaints in cases of abuse or mistreatment, and gave them the awareness and courage to stop performing menial tasks such as cleaning or serving tea. The policewomen stated that they gained more self-‐respect and felt more confident about the crucial roles they could play in maintaining security in Afghanistan. Over the course of PWMP, another key outcome was that policewomen became more comfortable in expressing their opinions and sharing their problems with Consortium partners and trainers. The periodic monitoring by the Consortium documented cases of policewomen demonstrating higher commitment in their work with many having become more punctual, for example. In Kabul, policewomen even organized themselves into a group to lobby collectively for better working conditions. Training and mentoring in awareness raising and advocacy enabled the policewomen to demand for basic improvements such as being issued appropriate uniforms, granted leave in an equitable manner, receiving benefits they had not been receiving, and being re-‐instated after wrongful dismissals. One poignant case was reported from Kunduz where a female officer was accused by her husband of having extramarital relations with a colleague at work. After JFAO, a Consortium partner, provided legal aid, the case against the policewoman was dropped due to lack of evidence and she returned to work. Consortium partners also observed first hand that policemen exhibited a more professional and welcoming demeanor when greeting visitors and when interacting with their female colleagues. Significant changes were also noted at the community level. Numerous cases were reported of elders and community leaders who had disapproved of women’s involvement in policing. Many of the elders claimed to have realized the importance of having women in ANP as a result of the interventions by PWMP Consortium partners. Community elders were particularly happy about policewomen performing body and house searches involving females. One religious leader, for example, who attended awareness training sessions in Jalalabad conducted a sermon at his mosque communicating positive messages about policewomen and encouraging men to support the recruitment of more women into ANP. Another indication of increased community support for women police, in Kunduz, was the increase in the number of more qualified women enlisting to become police officers.

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Accomplishments

Accomplishments can be divided into two broad categories: external and internal. Since a major focus of PWMP has been to develop and add to existing capacity, and the Consortium partners have stood to benefit from PWMP in terms of capacity, the Consortium partners were asked to list what each of them had learned as a result of working under PWMP and from other partners.

External There are key measurable external accomplishments directly attributable to the efforts of the PWMP Consortium partners. These include: • Facilitation by JFAO of recruitment of policewomen in Kabul and Kunduz. On hearing of that women’s organizations were working with ANP a number of women called consortium partners to find out how to join ANP.

• Increased awareness of women in communities that women’s groups were not advertising for ANP but trying to gain recognition for the need for policewomen and their contributions to the community.

• Identification of educated policewomen and promoting them to higher positions. For example, in one instant an educated female body searcher was taken to the gender unit of MoI, and request was made by a Consortium partner for promoting her to a higher ranking professional position. MoI agreed to award the female body searcher a position on completion of her degree.

• Requests made to ANP by one Consortium partner to increase the capacity of policewomen resulted in sending 6 policewomen to Turkey for additional training and as a basis for promotion.

• PWMP was the first time a consortium of women’s rights organizations worked with ANP and policewomen. Also, PWMP was a first time opportunity for policewomen to raise work-‐related issues with women’s rights organizations and seek consul and resolution. The two key outcomes of this experience were the positively changed perception of the Consortium partners of the policewomen and the increased level of comfort felt by the policewomen to talk to Consortium partners about the many challenges they faced. Some of the policewomen mentored through PWMP continue to call Consortium partners to seek guidance on how to overcome various work-‐related challenges.

• There is increased knowledge among the policewomen on where to go to be heard on their concerns. • The policewomen were instructed that complaining alone did not yield results and that all issues needed to be addressed through evidence-‐based advocacy.

• There was notable increase in the willingness of junior and senior policewomen to advocate for their own rights within ANP.

• There was a reduction in the negative and disempowered perception of the policewomen of themselves: Before PWMP many policewomen deemed the menial jobs given to them as “normal”. Soon after the mentoring started, many women started to question the allocation of menial jobs to policewomen.

• Sexual harassment of policewomen remains an accepted, though contested, fact within ANP. However, since PWMP started the policewomen who refused yielding to requests for sexual favors, and who were subsequently punished by being demoted and sent to remote locations, were assisted in negotiating transfers to locations closer to their own communities. PWMP mentors played an instrumental role in assisting the policewomen to negotiate these transfers.

• There is strong evidence that at least some male senior ANP officers now see it as part of their duties to meet with policewomen and address their many issues, including the late or non-‐payment of the policewomen’s salaries, as compared to policemen.

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• Policewomen who went through the mentoring program now believe that they have rights to be appraised, promoted, and receive their salaries in a timely manner.

• Wrongful dismissal and false accusations against some women in ANP were addressed by the Consortium partners, acting as mediators.

• Male officers who often used vile language in front of policewomen almost routinely were alerted to their undesirable behavior by Consortium partners through informal and friendly reprimands and individual mentoring sessions.

• In Kunduz, male ANP senior officials gave written commendation to one of the Consortium partners for working with the policewomen.

• In Kabul, ANP officials have begun asking questions about how MoI can lead the process of gender mainstreaming in ANP.

• Consortium partners requested to attend regular meetings between ANP and religious leaders, the vast majority of whom think women must not work as policewomen because the working environment of ANP is not safe or morally adequate for women. In Mazar-‐e Sharif some religious leaders are now recommending females to ANP for doing clerical jobs. While not ideal, this is an improvement over a complete denunciation of women working in ANP.

• The consortium members have played facilitating roles in re-‐instatement of some policewomen who were unfairly dismissed.

• Awareness training sessions were delivered with emphasis on the role of men in protecting and extending women’s rights. Awareness training was given to both policemen and policewomen. In some instances, senior male ANP officers who had attended awareness training sessions started addressing women’s cases of grievance.

• EUPOL began to pay attention to the potential of PWMP and the partner organizations and involved them in consultations on programming.

Internal A main accomplishment has been the emergence of a high degree of trust among the Consortium partner organizations. Whereas before PWMP each of the members, particularly those with similar mandates on women’s rights and advocacy, would see the other women’s rights organizations as direct competitors, PWMP created an environment for these competitors to work closely together, draw on each other’s strengths, and depend on each other’s activities. Some of the other internal benefits of PWMP include: • Recognizing the value of using findings from social research in advocacy. • Skills transfer between Consortium partners. For example, JFAO was provided with training on the principles of advocacy by AWSDC.

• Increased exposure of Consortium partner organizations and requests by other organizations for their skills and services.

• Adaptation of training modules from all Consortium partner organizations to the needs of the policewomen.

• More legitimacy of Consortium partners in carrying out advocacy due to their close association with MoI.

• Recognition of major obstacles in training and mentoring such as illiteracy of women and using illustrative examples and story telling to get rights-‐based messages across to the policewomen.

• Working in a consortium for the first time and learning how to work with other consortium members and appreciate the value of group work where members’ specific sets of expertise combined with others’ expertise created a whole larger than the sum of individual sets of expertise.

• Working for the first time with ANP and overcoming previously held negative perceptions of ANP.

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• Gradual acceptance by senior male ANP personnel of the Consortium partner organizations and increased confidence of the Consortium partners to fulfil their training and mentoring tasks.

• Increased recognition of the necessity of operating according to the donor’s (UNDP/LOTFA) administrative procedures and reporting requirements. All Consortium partners felt the need for increased finance and administrative capacity and resources to increase the efficiency of their reporting mechanisms.

• Recognition of planning based on availability of resources and meeting targets in a timely manner.

Challenges

Similar to accomplishments, the challenges have been divided into external and internal.

External • A number of civilian women who became aware of PWMP as a consortium to promote the position of women in ANP wanted to join ANP but could not. They were told that there were no vacancies.

• PWMP had insufficient focus on men as champions of women’s rights and place within ANP. This is of particular importance in the more conservative communities such as those in Nangarhar.

• Illiteracy presents a major obstacle in training and mentoring, particularly for women. • Insufficiency of training materials in Pashtu (for Nangarhar, in particular).

Internal • Lack of sufficient and adequate resources dedicated to this project by the Consortium partner organizations due to initial underestimation of administrative requirements by the donor (UNDP/LOTFA).

• Late feedback by donor on all forms of reporting by the Consortium partner organizations. • Lack of clarity of vision on the main purpose of PWMP, evidenced in poor or inadequate conceptualization of the problems of women in ANP, and their perceived solutions.

• Wrong sequence of activities, e.g., baseline being conducted after the project commenced and not before.

• Unaligned deliverables, e.g., no links between the findings from the baseline report and the research papers to training, mentoring, advocacy, and outreach activities.

• Insufficient attention and time to standardize training contents, agree to specific elements of mentoring, and expected outcomes.

• No formal agreement among the consortium partners and between the consortium and the donor on the practical meanings of advocacy, awareness, and outreach.

• Planning of activities based on incomplete information of the main needs of women in ANP (in part due to baseline not being carried out before the project commenced).

• One-‐sided definition of “problems” experienced by women and insistence by the donor that policewomen’s problems must be only directly related to ANP and their other issues are not the focus of PWMP. This conceptualization of problems is inappropriate for the complex and multi-‐faceted Afghan context.

• Long delays by the donor in processing payments for the Consortium partners meant delays in activities being delivered and created unnecessary burdens for the Consortium partner organizations.

• Because of the delays in releasing funds, all Consortium partner organizations had to utilize other resources to carry out many budgeted activities of PWMP.

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• Information requests by the donor relating to older reports resulted in new delays in the more current reports.

• Slow but progressive disenchantment of Consortium partner organizations due to not being paid for work performed and not having recognition of their work by the donor.

• Changing and expanding reporting requirements by the donor. • Change of personnel within the donor organization (UNDP/LOTFA) and among some of the Consortium partner organizations.

• Change of agreements between the Consortium partners and previous donor personnel, e.g., latent changes to M&E forms and financial and budgeting forms.

• Use of unqualified and inexperienced personnel by the donor to review and assess the work / performance of consortium partners. Three key examples are: • The baseline assessment report: went through numerous revisions, after each finalization, by rotating and inexperienced readers assigned by the donor to the review of the report.

• Monitoring to report on project progress: generated inadequate and insufficient contextual data due to being overly focused on numbers (of trainings provided, sites visited, conferences held, etc.)

• Project evaluation: carried out by donor organization’s M&E staff member without consultation with Consortium partner organizations to agree on the indicators to be used, and to ensure consistency of approach with internal monitoring activities.

Lessons Learned

One of the most fundamental lessons learned from PWMP is the importance of a good program design and a sound monitoring and evaluation system. PWMP’s logical framework and performance measurement framework could have been much sounder in terms of conceptual clarity about results (outputs and outcomes), internal consistency of activities among the Consortium partners and the donor, and having SMARTer52 indicators. The lack of clarity on these fundamental components of PWMP resulted in inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the work of the Consortium partners due to unclear responsibilities, difficulties in outreach efforts, and poor quality of internal communication and reporting. A common problem with M&E systems in general is the over-‐reliance on quantitative indicators as a measure of success. For programs such as PMWP, with a strong focus on behavioral and attitudinal change, additional assessment tools need to be employed. The most relevant and interesting results of PMWP were reflected not in meeting the quantitative targets, but in the numerous individual narratives by the policewomen and community members, both told and observed, showing increased morale, motivation, confidence, and capacity of policewomen observed during the monitoring visits. While these were captured to a degree in program reporting, the need was felt for more robust formal qualitative data collection systems including Most Significant Change53, Outcome Mapping54, or participatory evaluation methods. Certain tools, such as pre-‐ and post-‐tests for trainings and awareness sessions are more appropriate for individuals with low literacy levels. When assessment or measurement is carried out, the focus needs to be on changes in individuals as well as their working environment. Evaluations should also look inward, to the program itself, to establish the level of success by the intervening parties in meeting their 52 That is, indicators that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-‐bound. 53 More information on this tool can be found at www.mande.co.uk/docs/MSCGuide.pdf 54 More information on this tool can be found at www.outcomemapping.ca

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objectives, what has worked and why, and why some of the objectives have not been met despite the activities performed to meet them. An area that was not included as an outcome under PWMP, but should be included in future similar programming interventions, is internal capacity building of the Consortium partners, and the donor, as a whole. It is often the case that progress in implementing program activities by members of a consortium varies in quality across partner organizations. Organizations that have never worked together are unaware of other member organizations’ internal mechanisms, organizational culture, and various pressures to which all civil society organizations are subjected. A key component in consortium partner capacity building efforts should have been standardization in problem definition, scenario development, standardization of training contents and styles, and reporting mechanisms. While internal training and capacity building did take place, they were conducted on an ad hoc basis and not as planned and resourced integral components of PWMP.

Ways Forward

Women’s rights organizations in Afghanistan pursue their mandates to reach out to Afghan women and empower them to demand their basic rights at great risk to themselves and the women they hope to assist. In the conservative context of Afghanistan it is risky to undertake projects focused on women’s rights and against violence against women without having in-‐depth knowledge of context-‐specific gender relations. International agencies with mandates to assist and empower Afghan women and Afghan women’s rights organizations must be aware of the inherent risks associated with this type of intervention. In short, intervention to effect societal change in Afghanistan with positive outcomes for Afghan women has to be viewed as an ongoing, experimental (with a clear intent to “do no harm” and learn), and longer term project rather than a one-‐time technical fix. Despite the many difficulties experienced by all parties concerned, and the risks taken by the women’s rights Consortium partner organizations in carrying out their activities, PWMP is viewed by all Consortium partners as a necessary and innovative initiative, involving national civil society organizations with complementary skills and mandates. In broader terms, PWMP has been instrumental in adding capacity to the Consortium partner organizations while identifying new capacity needs. Both of these outcomes are consistent with UNDP’s mandate of capacity building. Because of PWMP, policewomen at the project sites became aware of their basic rights and began to make demands for action to exercise those rights. The Consortium partners also benefited from working with the policewomen. The most significant, but immeasurable, outcome of PWMP was the trust developed between policewomen and the implementing consortium member organizations. If nurtured, this trust would play a significant role in increasing the effectiveness of future interventions focused on policewomen and involving the Consortium partner organizations. This trust can also serve as a solid foundation on which to develop future programs aimed at strengthening the role of women in ANP. The main rationale for the PWMP initiative was to address the many needs that arise when women enter or are entered into the workforce. While PWMP focused on policewomen in ANP, and ANP has its own specific characteristics and challenges as a workplace for women, there are implications and learning from PWMP that go beyond ANP.

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Gender mainstreaming being a key point of international intervention in Afghanistan since late 2001, and efforts concentrated on increasing the number of women in all manner of formal governmental structures, have resulted in women becoming active members of the workforce in governmental ministries and sub-‐national governance structures such as the Provincial Councils and Community Development Councils. While the first objective of gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan has been met to some degree, i.e., placing women in the workforce, the second and more challenging objective, i.e., creating spaces to nurture and sustain women in the workforce, has only begun to be addressed through such initiatives as PWMP. Many of the challenges women face in ANP and other formal sectors were unforeseen when women entered the workforce. The challenge now is how to keep women in the workforce, and how to substantially and sustainably increase their numbers. In the same way that PWMP attempted to improve women’s conditions within ANP, future programming will be needed to attend to the needs of women who have already entered the workforce in other formal sectors such as government or business. In the transformational decade starting in 2015, it is crucial that UNDP/LOTFA and other international donors maintain their focus on increasing the numbers of women in different sectors while, at the same time, adequate resources are allocated to sustain the gains made based on learning from PWMP and similar mentoring initiatives.

Women in ANP - What Now?

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