Huff Post: by Katharine Houreld –
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan Oct 21 (Reuters) – When Shazadi Gillani, the highest ranking female police officer in Pakistan’s most conservative province, wanted to join the force she had to defy her father, forego marriage and pay for her own basic training.
During the next 19 years, Inspector Gillani and her faithful sidekick Rizwana Zafar – brought up as a boy after becoming her frustrated father’s ninth daughter – have battled bandits, earthquakes and militants.
The Taliban are so pervasive in Gillani’s northern Khyber Pakhunkhwa province that she wears a burqa, a head-to-toe robe with a small mesh window for the eyes, when she travels. Zafar dons a fake moustache to escort her.
But the women’s biggest challenge is helping new female police recruits. Women make up just 560 of the province’s 60,000-strong force. Police chiefs hope to double that within a year, but tough working conditions make recruitment hard.
There have been small victories.
