Women police in Meghalaya free from gender bias

Agencies NEW DELHI, AUGUST 23 Women in police forces recruited for safety of women in India are not only very less in number but also face chauvinism, but in matrilineal Meghalaya the case is different, an international report said. Despite the central government’s call for the force to raise the proportion of women to 33 percent, women make up only 6.11 percent of India’s 2.3 million police, a report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative found. The study was done in four states in the country form different regions- Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and Haryana.Of the states covered, the male culture is less acute in the Meghalaya Police, the report said. “As Meghalaya is a matrilineal society, there is greater space for women’s participation in the overall workforce,” it added. While representation of women in Meghalaya Police is only 2.87%, the women police interviewed did not complain of discrimination or other attitudinal cultural problems, the report said. But in case of other states women complained about menial duties, bypassed for promotion and sexual harassment by male colleagues. Interviews with male and female police officers in five Indian states found that women face a deep-seated gender bias across the police force, which starts at recruitment and continues throughout their career, said Devika Prasad, co-author of the report “Rough Roads to Equality: Women Police in South Asia”. “Everywhere that we went, women police across ranks told us one of the most discouraging things for them is that there are no women on recruitment and interview boards and selection panels,” Prasad said at the launch of the report. “We also found that women are assigned desk and clerical jobs and not given frontline operational duties such as investigations. We were constantly told by male police that policing is a man’s job and that women can’t do the job as they are not strong physically and psychologically.” As a result, women are concentrated in the lower ranks of the police and made to work on specific ‘women and child’ crimes where they record statements and register complaints, but gain little experience, reducing their chances of promotion. The study showed that more than 80 percent of policewomen are constables, the lowest rank, 7.8 percent head constables, 3.35 percent assistant sub inspectors and only 0.02 percent hold the top ranks – director general and additional director general. The report also found that there was little acknowledgment by the police leadership of sexual harassment. Many policewomen did not even know there was a law against sexual harassment in the workplace, and how and where to complain. “There is a real fear that they will be maligned, punished and victimised. We found that they would not speak to us formally, but during breaks they would tell us sexual harassment is endemic,” said Prasad. There were many cases where police women on duty would avoid even drinking water since there are no separate toilets for them, the report said. Despite Government order, many police stations do not have separate toilets for women, it added.