KARACHI – Civil society members, police officials and journalists attended a consultative session to discuss the gender-based reforms in the police department. The interactive and feedback session was hosted by Individual and Pakistan, a no-profit consultancy, in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian Embassy. The session, first in the series of three sessions, was titled ‘Women Police as Change Agents and Gender Based Police Reforms’. The two other sessions will be held in Lahore and Islamabad.“The achievements and contributions have not been celebrated at a level, where they can serve as an inspiration and motivation for other females to join the department,” said Gulmina Bilal, the executive director of Individual and Pakistan. “There are individual success stories. So far, the department has been unable to transform and implement them at a holistic level.”During the session, the male and female police officials spoke on the challenges they face regarding duty. They were of the views that unless the policewomen are patronised at the institutional level, no change will take place. The senior police officers said that women are among the good performers of the department and now they are getting operational role as well. One of the common complaints of women officials was that the department assigns to them only supporting role while the males are getting field and operational duties. Former Inspector General of Police Niaz Ahmed Siddqui said, “Police have to work with the community, whereas the induction of women should be increased in the department to facilitate the community.”The initiative is aimed at speeding up reforms in the police department. This is an attempt to showcasing and recognising the work of policewomen, besides highlighting the issues and challenges they are confronted with. They also stressed the need for creating a gender responsive police department.