SEESAC Shares its Experience in Advancing Gender Mainstreaming with the Armenian Police Delegation

On 27 August 2013, SEESAC received a high-ranking delegation from the Police of the Republic of Armenia currently visiting Serbia in order to exchange best practices and valuable information with regards to the activities advancing gender equality in the police, with their counterparts.  

The delegation requested a meeting with SEESAC in order to learn more about the gender mainstreaming efforts taking place on a regional level, throughout the South East Europe (SEE) police services and particularly through the work of the Women Police Officers Network in South East Europe (WPON).

During the meeting with the officials from the Armenian Police Headquarters, Main Criminal Intelligence Department, Human Resources and Province Department, Ms. Bojana Balon - SEESAC Programme Officer, highlighted SEESAC’s regional experiences in advancing gender mainstreaming in the security sector through its two flagship regional initiatives WPON and Gender Equality in the Military.

The Armenian delegation was particularly interested in the work of WPON - a regional advocacy mechanism tasked with facilitating the advancement of the position of women and gender sensitive policing practices in SEE police services.  SEESAC serves as the WPON Secretariat through its “Support for Gender Mainstreaming in Policing in South East Europe” project. The guests were interested to learn more about the establishment of national associations of women police officers and challenges women face in professional carrier in this region.  

Ms. Balon also presented the Guidelines for Gender Sensitive Policing, which were developed by WPON members and with the support of SEESAC. The Guidelines were developed to map and propose a set of simple and low cost measures that will help police services in SEE attract and retain more qualified women and advance gender equality.

The Guidelines prompted a discussion about the position of women in the police in Armenia and ways to advance the implementation of the Armenian national gender equality legal framework. Given that next year Armenia will allow access to women at the Military Academy, the visiting delegation was also eager to hear about SEESAC’s Gender Equality in Military project.

During their four-day visit to Serbia, organized by the OSCE, the Armenian Police Officials are also visiting the Directorate for Police Education, Professional Development, Specialised Training and Science of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia, the Police Academy and the Basic Police Training Centre in Sremska Kamenica.