Afghan Police Force Development

Afghan Police Trainees

There have been major developments in the training and development of Afghanistan’s police force. Today, in a ceremony at its headquarters, Afghanistan’s Minister of Interior, Mohammad Haneef Atmar, who is responsible for the Afghan police, announced the centralization and standardization of the Afghan National Police recruiting system. According to the Afghan and foreign officials who were present at the ceremony, the realignment of the current recruiting structure under one centralized command will produce better trained recruiters. The recruiters will be able to better assess, and according to their qualifications, assign new applicants to the proper vacancies. At the ceremony, Atmar said: “We used to hire officers, send them straight to work and train them later. Now we recruit, train, and then send the trained personnel do perform their duties.”

At the ceremony, it was also announced that a recruiting division has been created that will be dedicated entirely to recruiting women into all branches of the police force. In regards to the creation of this new division, Atmar said: “One thing which is really important is to increase the number of female police officers, we plan to increase the number of women in the Afghan National Police to 5,000 over the next five years.”

Also today, more than 100 United States Marines arrived in Kabul to participate in a 3 month project to support the development of the Afghan National Police. The Marines will be split up into various teams and sent to different locations in Afghanistan, mostly to the east and the south, where they are needed the most, in order to help the trainers on the ground over there. They will help with basic training, as well as work with the Afghan Border Police and the Afghan Civil Order Police.

Earlier in the week, the German government again showed their commitment to the development of Afghanistan’s police force. The German Interior Minister and Germany’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, officially announced the opening of a new police training center in Kunduz province. In this new center, the plan is to train 400 new police officers this year, and starting from 2011, the plan is to train 500 officers every year at this center. Through out Afghanistan, the Germans have committed to training up to 5,000 police officers in Afghanistan. There are currently over 200 German police officers and experts in Afghanistan helping to train and develop Afghanistan’s police force.

Having a properly trained professional police force is a key component in ensuring security for the people of Afghanistan. The Afghan government, particularly, the Minister of Interior has been working with such countries as the United States and Germany for many years now to help train and develop the police force and improve its structure in Afghanistan.

March 31, 2010 · admin · No Comments
Posted in: Reconstruction and Development, Security in Afghanistan, Women's Rights