[Reader-list] Fw: Indian women: peace keeping and providing security to the President... in Liberia
lalitha kamath
elkamath at yahoo.com
Fri Mar 7 13:18:56 IST 2008
FYI
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=hub010308good_morning.asp
RYAN LOBO
meets the extraordinary Indian women who keep peace and guard the President
in war-torn Liberia
I HAD GONE to Liberia
to work on a self-funded documentary film and photo project about a certain
war criminal. Midproject, while driving through Monrovia, the Liberian
capital, I thought I heard someone yell something in Kannada. I turned
around and saw several women standing by an armored truck and they all
looked Indian. A friend, who I was working with on the project, said she
was in the process of doing a radio story about the very same women and
after a day’s work with the helpful bureaucracy at the United Nations
(UN) headquarters, we landed up at the base of the Indian Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF) contingent in Congo town, Monrovia.
This 125 strong, spectacular
UN contingent composed mostly of Indian women helps keep the peace in
the West African nation of Liberia, devastated by one of Africa's most
bloody civil wars. This war has left more than 2,00,000 people dead, thousands
scarred by violence and rape, a shattered economy, 85 percent unemployment,
drug addiction and crime on a spectacular scale.
The Indian contingent consists
of 125 officers of whom 105 are women from CRPF battalions all over India.
The men cook, drive and maintain the vehicles. The women help maintain
law and order and provide armed backup to the Liberian National Police.
India has been a longtime contributor to UN missions all over the world
and has sent women to conflict zones before, though not in such numbers.
The contingent commander Seema Dhundia, says that the biggest challenge was proving their competence. Sitting in her spartan office with a large “Incredible
India” print overhead, she said that, at first, the idea of an all-female contingent did not convince superiors at home or in the UN but, she continues, “Our girls are experienced and have served in insurgent areas all over India. When things finally got started here, people took them very seriously as the members of the contingent proved themselves competent.” The UN has called India’s decision to deploy female officers in policing “unprecedented”.
The girls, as Dhundia
calls them, now provide security to the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
(Africa’s first elected head of office), patrol dangerous neighborhoods
and guard critical government buildings. The unit used to be called the
FFPU or the “Female Formed Police Unit”. It’s now just called the FPU
or the “formed police unit”. “We are just as good if not better than most
of the FPUs,” says Poonam, FPU member.
One of the reasons
why the Indian contingent was called to duty is that UN deployments themselves
in the past have been accused of sexual exploitation of local women and
children. The presence of the Indian female contingent is expected to
sensitise the police force and encourage more Liberian women to join the
force. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, a government survey of ten of Liberia’s fifteen counties claim
that 92 percent of the 1,600 women interviewed said they had experienced
some form of sexual violence, including rape. Women’s groups in Liberia
estimate that approximately 40 percent of all girls and women in Liberia
have been sexually abused.
DHUNDIA believes that
the women’s maternal instinct can help them perform better in post conflict
scenarios, especially where women and children are victims. She also believes
that women can often gauge a situation much better than men when it comes
to reading emotions and are more capable of defusing a situation non-aggressively.
“I think the presence
of women when it comes to riot control can actually have a calming effect,”
Dhundia says. As members of the CRPF these women have served in Jammu
and Kashmir and the North East. They have ended communal riots, repulsed
cross border terrorists and insurgents and sustained casualties. Dhundia
says the number of Liberian women applying for police jobs has increased
dramatically after the arrival of the Indian contingent.
70 percent of the
women are married with children. The women I spoke with said the hardest
part of their deployment was being away from their families. “Our children
are on our minds all the time,” says Dhundia. “Leaving one’s children
to work in a far off war zone is not easy and I miss them terribly.” Valsala,
a member of the contingent, disagrees. “We are very busy and can’t be
thinking of other things. Our lives depend on it.” But she leaves and
returns with photos of her children. “Maybe they will see themselves if
you publish them and know I’m thinking of them,” she says.
The women wake at
6 am, have roll call, drill and exercises at 7 am, then sit down to a
vegetarian Indian breakfast. On to weapons maintenance. They don’t
leave the premises except on duty. Seventy percent of the women are deployed
at any point, day or night. Recently they shot dead an armed robber who
had fired an AK47 at them. The unit has been lucky. It has not sustained
any casualties though dozens of other military personnel have been killed
in the past four years. Their free time is spent playing volleyball and
resting before their patrols through Monrovia’s most dangerous neighbourhoods.
The only other entertainment
are three Indian TV channels. While I was present a small group was watching
a soap opera. They left for patrols a few minutes before the climax, when
on screen the police bursts through the door to arrest the beautiful,
innocent heroine who silently takes the blame for a murder her husband
commited.
I felt comforted that India’s
own diversity and serious problems have not split it as deeply as Liberian
society. The women’s unit, efficient despite speaking different languages
and being from different parts of India, seemed to represent our continuing
cohesiveness. On February 1, the unit I met returned to India and was
replaced by another women’s contingent.
From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 8, Dated Mar 01, 2008
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