Will we finally have inclusive police services?

The government's decision to have a special one-stop service (OSS) desk for women, children, disabled persons and the elderly at all police stations is, no doubt, praiseworthy. There are many circumstances where it's difficult for women and children—for social, political or other reasons—to talk about their problems with male police officers. In cases related to sexual violence, in particular, they often don't feel comfortable talking to male officers, and frequent incidents of our policemen mistreating and further harassing survivors of such crimes in the past have only made the situation worse. Fortunately, the special service desk, formally inaugurated by the prime minister on April 10, will be led by a female sub-inspector, who will have a handful of other policewomen working under her.

So far, the results from the special desk, which was launched on a pilot basis in January 2020, seems to be quite positive—181,000 women, 32,286 children, 138,000 elderly people and 11,081 people with disabilities have received the service so far, according to data from the Police Headquarters (PHQ). In Narayanganj sadar model police station, 218 complaints were recorded at the desk. Encouragingly, 198 of those grievances were settled by holding meetings. That 90 percent of the cases were resolved in such a short time is a good sign, particularly given that many cases in our country involving women and children often progress extremely slowly. However, given the ground reality that, in many cases, police take the side of powerful parties and pressurise the victims to "settle," we can only hope that the OSS desk will set a different example and truly resolve the cases with the best interests of the victims at heart.

The desk will also inform visitors about other government services and provide legal aid to victims who are not financially well-off. This, we believe, is very important. When it comes to many delicate cases involving women, children, disabled persons and the elderly, awareness of what facilities they are entitled to can provide them with the courage and essential support that reassure them to pursue justice. Police stations in our country are hardly ever welcoming towards victims—especially of gender-based violence—which discourages them from pursuing legal recourse. We hope this special desk will change that. It is imperative for those working at these desks to have a good understanding of how to handle sensitive cases; as such, there should be capacity-building and gender sensitivity training for all officers. Now that the OSS desks have proven to be somewhat successful, we hope that this initiative will be followed through and provided with the necessary support from the government, so that it doesn't fall by the wayside—like so many good government initiatives regularly do.