More Policewomen on the Way
New recruits are on the way to help the 3 women police officers responsible for questioning women and child crime victims in all the 7 provinces of the north.
The bad news for the grossly over-worked trio, based at the Chiang Mai Provincial Police HQ on Superhighway, is that the 70 new female officers won’t graduate for another 3 years.
This was the message given to the recent seminar of the Foundation for Women by Police Maj. Gen. Amnuay Nimmano, who admitted that currently, of 8,000 interrogators in Thailand, only 137 are women and 128 of them work in Bangkok. The national total used to be higher, but many policewomen had left the force for better paid jobs in other fields, he said.
“Each police station should have at least one policewoman to deal with crimes involving women and children” he added. Many such crimes involved physical and sexual abuse and many witnesses were too embarassed to talk openly to male officers.Pol Lt Col Jaruwan Churasri, aged 28, the only woman at Don Muang police station, said that the justice process “lacked sensitivity” towards women and child victims.
