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PA Policewomen Search Palestinian Women for Weapons

[Christian Science Monitor] Ilene R. Prusher - Using female police officers in the field is part of the latest PA effort to help Mahmoud Abbas better control the West Bank and Hamas. As part of a new PA security initiative, every Hebron unit that searches houses includes two female officers. "In the past, we never had women in the police, except maybe some working in the office," says Brig.-Gen. Samaeeh el-Safy, who heads the new security campaign in the Hebron area. "When our forces used to enter houses in the past, before this campaign, the women would hide the weapons in their underclothes, and then they were automatically off limits," says Khitam Farraj, a female police officer with a PhD in psychology. But now women are taking a leading role in many security operations in the West Bank. When police enter a house, the female officers immediately take the women aside, usually to a separate room, and search them in a respectful way, while the men go to work on the men.
2008-11-21 01:00:00
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