Patna: The Bihar Police Academy (BPA) and UNICEF jointly oriented newly recruited Women Probationary Sub Inspectors for handling gender and child protection issues with humane approach.
During the joint orientation programme held at Police Academy, Rajgir on Thursday, Assistant Director, BPA Arvind Kumar Pandey said that 150 women probationary Sub Inspectors in collaboration with UNICEF have been sensitised about child rights, key child protection laws, gender issues and specific role of police in promoting the rights of children and women who come in contact with them. He said that each female police officer, participating in the training will cover 2 lakh people and perform their duty with the requisite knowledge and skill sets in implementing the Laws related to children. In all, 150 SIs will cover approximately a population of 300,000,00 across the 38 districts of Bihar, he added.
The BPA and UNICEF joined hands with a vision to institutionalise the issues of child protection and gender into police’s regular curriculum. Welcoming the collaboration, Arvind Pandey appreciated that UNICEF came forward with a diverse team representing South Asia to collaborate with us on sensitising and motivating the newly recruited police officers to appropriately and effectively work in the arena of child protection and rights. This collaboration in capacity building will help in improving the image of police among common people.
In her opening remarks, Nafisa Binte Shafique, Chief, UNICEF Bihar expressed happiness over partnership with BPA saying that the orientation programme was litmus test as being an international agency, UNICEF bring expertise and experiences from the global perspective to local through contextualising it to the local needs. She hoped that the training programme will reap multiple benefits by ensuring children, adolescents and women’s rights and protection issues. On the basis of feedback , the sessions would be prepared accordingly for the future batches.
Addressing the participants, Gargi Saha, Child Protection Officer, UNICEF Bihar said that owing to one of the highest populated state in terms of 42% of its young population and police as the first responder for any crime against children and women, a large responsibility lies on them. She said that the young women in police will act as the role models for many more women and girls.
While taking a session on the role of Police under key Child Protection legislations like The Juvenile Justice Act and The Prevention of Children against sexual Offences Act (POCSO), Ms. Saha highlighted the procedures in dealing the matter related to children under “Juvenile Justice System”, which is totally different from the adult justice system. She also emphasized on Police’s role in community policing and break the barriers related to reporting of exploitation, abuse and stigma especially on sexual aspects. Simple techniques relating to rescue, lodging of FIR, recording of statement of victim of sexual exploitation, provision of compensation and others were the focus of the training.
International level resource person from UNICEF Delhi Madhuri and Bimal Rawal, International Consultant took sessions on “Gender and human rights” where they highlighted the need to deal with individual prejudices and biases , patriarchal norms, structural barriers and how can women police officials work towards making the space safer for women, girls and children.
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