DHAKA: An unpublished UN report on female police officers in Afghanistan found accounts of pervasive sexual assault and harassment by their male colleagues, according to Afghan and Western officials familiar with the report.

The report, which the United Nations has circulated only among senior Afghan officials at the interior ministry, found that about 90 percent of the policewomen interviewed described sexual harassment and sexual violence as a serious problem, and that about 70 percent of the policewomen said that they had personally experienced sexual harassment or sexual violence themselves, according to people who saw the report or had it described to them.

While a much smaller fraction reported either being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted, the overall picture was of a police force in which women were constantly at risk, says NDTV.

Although the UN report has not been made public and was not made available to ‘The New York Times’, two other recent reports touched on similar problems, though they did not focus as closely on the issue of sexual assault and harassment.

Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, who stepped down as interior minister in August, described the United Nations report’s broad outlines, but questioned its findings.

He said that after reading the report he sent a team to investigate the situation of female police officers and that none of the women his team spoke to complained of such mistreatment.

‘If an Afghan policewoman is being raped or sexually harassed, they would report that - they wouldn’t keep it secret,’ he said.

The chief spokesman for the interior ministry, Seddiq Seddiqi, said he thought the report had ‘some exaggeration of the issues and the problems’.

Both men insisted, however, that the ministry was committed to improving the situation of policewomen.

The report, according to two people familiar with it, surveyed nearly 10 percent of the female police force. United Nations officials would not discuss its details.

BDST: 1934 HRS, SEPT 17, 2013
RoR/RIS