A time when India gives much importance to the empowerment of women, they are a weekend section in the Indian Police force that faces much discrimination.
In a study titled “Status of Policing in India Report 2019”, it has been said that almost two in every five women personnel, which may come to around 37 per cent, wanted to quit the force and take up another job. This showed that the women force in the Indian police was not satisfied.
Always male dominant, the report said that the possibility of women being posted at officer level was least likely. It also said that the proportion of women offices was much less in almost all the states except in Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Utarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.
Moreover, the study also reveals that it has come across male police personnel showing bias against the women personnel. This was highly reported from Karnataka and Bihar, the report said. Moreover, one in two women police personnel said that equal treatment was not meted out to men and women in uniform. The situation is reported to be worst in Telangana, Punjab and Punjab.
The status report reveals that women police personnel are only given minor jobs such as documentation and maintaining registers.
With respect to facilities at police stations, police stations in majority of the states did not have separate toilet facilities for women. It is mandatory to have committees as per Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act. However, the report notes that less than three fourths of the surveyed states had such a committee. Bihar showed the worst graph with 76 per cent of women personnel reporting the lack of such a committee. Odisha, Delhi, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh are better in the graph.
