Regional push to see more Pacific police women

Transcript

The low representation of women police officers in the Pacific, is among one of the key issues highlighted at a regional police conference in Auckland this week.

Police delegates from 21 Pacific countries attended the 12th Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police Womens Advisory Network conference to discuss the key challenges faced by women officers in the region.

Indira Moala reports.

The PICP WAN's Secretariat Jonelle Lancashire, who is from the Australian Federal Police, says their latest report showed that five Pacific countries had decreased in their number of women officers over the last five years.  While Niue has the highest number of female officers in the Pacific, at 42 percent, all other countries generally fared well below 30 percent.  Women officers in the Federated States of Micronesia currently make up only 3 percent of the force, the lowest figures in the Pacific.  Ms Lancashire says the organisation is working with police in the region to help increase their female numbers.

JONELLE LANCASHIRE: They are some of the smaller jurisdictions such as FSM and Marshall Islands that have a relatively low percentile of female employees. There's certainly work that we would like to undertake with those jurisdictions to determine how we may be able to assist them and actually identify whether it's a recruitment issue or a retention issue.

The organisation's chairperson and New Zealand Police Inspector Karen Henrikson says those women who are in service, commonly face gender inequality issues.  She adds that in some parts of the region, women police officers aren't even allowed to drive .

KAREN HENRIKSON: That's the difficult part of it. It's ingrained culture that they're up against as well as within the police service. So there's sort of the culture of the island or the country, and the culture of the police service on top of that. So, it's not easy. It's a lot of hard work and it's really going to take these women that are delegates here to stand up and lead the change.

Sergeant Pauline Rangi, from the Cook Islands police, says she sees a great need for more women in the service.

PAULINE RANGI: Yes, there needs to be more. It's just that awareness going out to our women in the community and saying that there's an opportunity in the police. So I encourage females in the Cook Islands or anywhere to take up this role as a police officer.

Ms Lancashire says there's been a significant increase in the number of Senior promotions for female officers in the region over the past year.

JONELLE LANCASHIRE: Really pleasing to see that we now have three females at the Deputy Commissioner level. Australia in particular has promoted a female to the deputy commissioner level as has Solomon Islands and Tonga police. And we now have female Assistant Commissioners throughout the Pacific and Superintendent or Commander level.

The PICP WAN is aiming to provide mentoring and career development programmes to help further enhance the contribution of women across the region.