Afghan Women Entering Police, Army Bear Risk of Taliban Return

Published: Wednesday, August 03, 2011

The U.S. is helping recruit and train thousands of women for Afghanistan's police and army, even as officials seek a peace agreement that might return some power to their former tormentors, the Taliban.

Some 1,200 women serve in Afghanistan's national police and 320 in the army. More than 50 have graduated from the military's officer candidate school and another course is under way. Four female second lieutenants from the army arrived in the U.S. last month to train as helicopter pilots.

"We think that will make the difference in the security of the country," said Jack Kem, the senior civilian representative in the NATO Training Mission. "There is a tie between women having a role in the security forces of a society and how stable a society is."

This increasing return of women into Afghanistan's leadership and security forces is at risk as the Obama administration steps up its drive for a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban to speed the U.S. military exit.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. officials will face "centrifugal pressure" in any negotiations to re-open the country's current constitution, said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. That would put the clauses guaranteeing equality for women up for grabs, she said.

Click here to read the rest of this article from Bloomberg..