Indian women excel as peacekeepers

When darkness comes to Congo Town, women in crisp uniforms take the streets, patrolling with Kalashnikov rifles and long, black hair tucked into baby-blue caps.
The brisk sergeant in command, Monia Gusain, matter of factly calls them ‘my men.’ But the stern Indian women facing her are actually wives and mothers who wage peace for a living on the rutted dirt roads of Liberia.

The women — part of a special female United Nations police unit from India — lead dual lives: stamping out street crime by night and standing guard under the steamy equatorial sun outside the Monrovia headquarters of the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. When they retreat, home is a military barracks where they tell bedtime stories to their toddlers via video conference calls.

Together they form the thin pink line of a UN recruitment campaign for the 21st century. As it marked the 100th International Women’s Day on March 8, the UN is intensifying efforts to recruit women for peacekeeping missions that seek to mend what war has wrought.

The theory is that women employ distinctive social skills in a rugged macho domain. They are being counted on to bring calm to the streets and the barracks, acting as public servants instead of invaders.

“When female soldiers are present, the situation is closer to real life, and as a result the men tend to behave,” said Gerard J DeGroot, a history professor at the University of St Andrews in Scotland who has written books about women in the military. “Any conflict where you have an all-male army, it’s like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilising effect.”

As modern peacekeeping has evolved into nation building, the number of female police officers in UN peacekeeping missions around the world has doubled during the past five years to 833, or more than 6 per cent of a force of 12,867. Nigeria and India are top contributors to a total that is still far below the international goal of 20 per cent. In some missions — notably Darfur and Liberia — women are edging closer: Women account for 14 per cent of the 1,354 police peacekeepers in Liberia.

Liberia — a West African country created in 1847 to settle freed American slaves — is something of a modern laboratory for the rise of women making peace. Women are marching in foot patrols; the head of the UN mission, Ellen Margrethe Loj of Denmark, is a woman; and the Liberian president, Mrs Sirleaf, is the first woman elected as an African head of state, in 2005.

Mrs Sirleaf — whose nickname is ‘Iron Lady’ — is particularly blunt about the role of women in the recovery of her fragile country, which was battered by 14 years of civil war that left about 2,00,000 people dead and survivors haunted by torture, systematic rapes and the exploitation of drug-addicted boy soldiers.

“What a woman brings to the task is extra sensitivity, more caring,” Mrs Sirleaf said in an interview. “I think that these are the characteristics that come from being a mother, taking care of a family, being concerned about children, managing the home.”

The softer approach is critical in Liberia. In 2004, a UN report criticised peacekeepers in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti for the sexual abuse of young women by trading food and money for sex. In 2005, 47 peacekeepers were accused of sexual abuse in Liberia, compared with 18 who were accused last year, according to the UN mission.

Improvement in behaviour

Top UN officials credit the arrival of women for helping improve behaviour. Yet within Liberia, national peacekeeping units from different countries are still debating the best approach, tinkering with ways to best deploy female peacekeepers — or ‘blue helmettes’ in UN lingo.

The contingents from India and Nigeria have both settled into Liberian outposts with contrasting approaches that raise a simple question: Should female peacekeepers be mixed with male peacekeepers?

For many military and police officers from poorer nations, a main attraction of peacekeeping is a special allowance financed by the United Nations and disbursed to the home countries of peacekeepers. It adds up to about $1,000 a month, which — for peacemakers from third world countries — can be equivalent to five times their base pay.

Since early in 2007, Indian women have stood guard outside the president’s office on the main street in Monrovia. It is a highly symbolic post, even for critics who complain that the women — whose English is weaker than their Hindi — have minimal contact with the local population.

“I don’t think women in peacekeeping have come across to the Liberian people,” said John Richardson, an adviser to Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, who remains popular in Liberia although he is on trial in The Hague on war crimes charges.

The Indian unit of 103 women also plays a more unsung role, mentoring unarmed local Liberian police officers who must deal with the lingering suspicions of citizens who resented police participation in the civil war.

On the streets of Congo Town, a Monrovia suburb where crime rates soared after the war, supporters credit old-fashioned Indian foot patrols with cutting armed robberies by as much as 65 per cent, according to Gostine Hallie, a Congo Town police chief who trudges on patrols with the women.

Most of the Indian women were leaving their country for the first time when they joined the UN mission in Liberia. Their English is often shaky, but their commanders say they have established a rapport.

During the Liberian civil war, “it was the men who inflicted harm on women, and most of the time the sufferers were women and children,” said Annie Abraham, 45, the commanding officer of the Indian unit that just finished its rotation and was replaced by new recruits. The Indian contingent has brought along 22 men, who are the cooks, mechanics and drivers who support the female unit.

On the street, the Indian women are perceived as sober and intimidating, but the biggest menace in the barracks is homesickness and depression. To counter the blues and connect with Liberians, the unit organised Indian festivals, Bollywood dancing lessons and the ‘adoption’ of a school and orphanage.

Some women have found the challenge of leading a life far from their family too daunting. As female participation grows, that issue will be critical for the UN, which is considering shorter, more flexible rotations.

“No more missions — it’s the first and the last because it’s difficult for me as a mother,” said Syalus Maharana, an Indian operations commander who finished her yearlong tour along with the daily ritual of mothering her 5-year-old son by hourlong video conference calls.

“He’s being looked after nicely and he is not missing me, but I am missing him,” she said. “He tells me, ‘Mama, are you using a mosquito net?’ He is advising me, and I should be advising him.”