Increasing and Supporting the Participation of Women at all Levels of Policing

The objective of this project, whose first pilot activities are taking place in Montenegro, is to assist OSCE participating States in increasing and strengthening the participation of women at all levels of policing, thus improving their police services, resulting in enhanced public safety and security. The project, which was developed by the Strategic Police Matters Unit of the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department, not only focuses on increasing the number of women as police officers and managers but also addresses other identified obstacles based on situation analysis, needs assessments and tailored measures for each of the beneficiary countries.

Background

The police are the most visible manifestation of state authority. Their main duties include maintaining law and order, protecting and respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms; preventing and combating crime; and providing assistance and services to the public (UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers (1979, Art. 1 and 2). The most recent mandated priorities for police-related activities are presented in the OSCE Strategic Framework for Police-Related Activities (PC.DEC/1049, 2012), whereby one of the main thematic priorities is to support police development and reform, which includes building police-public partnership. creating multi-ethnic police services, and promoting gender mainstreaming and initiatives to raise gender awareness (para. 14). The document further underlines that OSCE’s police-related activities shall be guided by norms, principles and standards defined in the UN and the OSCE documents, which emphasize, inter alia, gender equality (para. 10).

UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (On Women, Peace and Security, 2000), 2185 (Role of Policing in UN Peacekeeping, 2014) and 2242 (On Women, Peace and Security, 2015) highlight the essential role of women and stress the importance of their equal participation in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, including the police.

Within the framework of the statistical research for this project, all OSCE field operations were requested to submit information and material from their host countries regarding women’s participation in the police and existing projects or programmes to address this subject. Information and statistical data received in August-October 2018 from OSCE field operations show that women account for 6,3% to 19,2% of police officers in OSCE pS hosting FOs.

Even though up-to-date statistics and information on women police officers are limited and often not comparable, available data clearly shows that women are significantly underrepresented in police services in the entire OSCE area.

Expected Results

This project aims to raise awareness among governmental officials, policy-makers, police managers/officers, and managers of police training institutions/academies on the need to increase the number of women police officers and enhance women’s participation at all levels of policing in the four selected OSCE participating States. As a result, tailored measures for each pS will be identified under the guidance of the Steering Group, which is comprised of representatives of the OSCE Secretariat, the OSCE Mission to Montenegro, the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, the Ministry of Interior, the Police Directorate, civil society and international partners from the Norway Center for Integrity in the Defence (CIDS) and the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF). This Steering Group will ensure local ownership and co-ordination of activities at the national level with all relevant stakeholders and seek to avoid overlapping.

In addition, the project implementation will have far-reaching societal implications in the target countries, as increased participation of women in law-enforcement will be beneficial for the society at large through breaking existing stereotypes and affecting the cultural perception of women and women’s roles.

The project scope implies a very active involvement of direct beneficiaries, i.e. relevant ministries, police agencies and law enforcement training institutions as well as non-governmental organizations, civil society and the general public of the four selected target countries. The national actors have indispensable roles at all stages of the project implementation, starting from regional workshops up to the actual implementation of the tailored activities. Such a broad involvement of beneficiaries is instrumental for ensuring a high level of national ownership and sustainability of the project outcomes.