Burqa and a badge: Afghan women become cops

'If the Taliban comes back, they will kill us all,' 29-year-old officer says

Miguel Villagran / Getty Images

Afghan police women learn search techniques at a training center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on June 14.

by Ernesto Londoño

updated 7/3/2010 4:20:58 AM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Each morning, the 23 female police officers in Kandahar walk into the city's bunkered police headquarters wearing burqas, the enveloping garments that shroud women from head to toe.

The outfit is not a choice; rather, it is their most valuable protection, a cloak of anonymity in a city where insurgents routinely kill police officers and where many residents hold a dogmatic view of the role of women.

"We face threats every day," said 3rd Lt. Fatima Esaqzai, 32, the highest-ranking woman on the force. "In this society, people don't see us with good eyes."

Afghan women in law enforcement make up a small but growing and critical segment of the country's fledgling security forces, Afghan and NATO officials say.

But the female officers say they have felt increasingly vulnerable amid a spike in violence and an effort by the Afghan government to reach a negotiated truce with the Taliban.

"If the Taliban comes back, they will kill us all," said Sadiqa, 29, an officer who survived a bombing at police headquarters and has had to move three times because of threats from the Taliban. "If a negotiation takes place, we would have to leave the country."

Female officers are valuable to the government's security efforts because they are able to pat down women at checkpoints and during raids — acts that would be culturally impermissible for men. They also are better suited than male officers to interrogate women who have informationabout terrorism and criminal activity. NATO officials say the predominantly male Afghan security forces have a very difficult time reaching out to women who might become informants on insurgent activity or those who have been victims of crime.

In an effort to fill that void temporarily, the U.S. Marines recently trained and deployed two units of female Marines tasked with assessing the needs of Afghan women.

'We need their presence'
There are roughly 700 female police officers in Afghanistan, which has approximately 100,000 officers