Despite intense efforts to improve the status of women in Afghanistan, it’s still in uphill battle. Women are accomplishing more things than ever before, but they’re still fought at every juncture point about things as simple as using the restroom. There is now a place for women in the Afghani police force, but they face a precarious choice between safety from Taliban members and safety and privacy from the male members of the police force.

When female members of the police force leave for work everyday, they can’t wear their uniforms- it’s an easy identifier that allows the Taliban to pick women out as easy targets. The alternative is for women to wear regular clothing and change into their uniforms once get to work- but there are no private rooms where women can change safely away from their male counterparts. When women are forced to change in men’s bathrooms, they must stand guard for each other to ensure that men don’t invade their privacy. Women in this position are far more prone to abuse from their colleagues, and changes have to be made to ensure that such simple tasks as going to the bathroom or changing into a police uniform doesn’t net sexual abuse.

Sexual assault and abuse is already widespread within the Afghani police force; it's probably one of the things that keeps levels of female enrollment in the police force at such a low number. Women make up just 1% of the Afghani police force, and it's extremely difficult to recruit women when they know that they'll be facing sexual assault and harassment on a daily basis. There are a lot of changes that need to be made to make the Afghani police force more conducive to female officers. For one, separate dressing rooms or restrooms should be provided for both men and women. That’s a small, concrete change that can have a dramatic impact on the quality of life for women on the police force. To really combat sexual violence, however, there have to be broad institutional changes as well as small pragmatic ones. For one, almost no male police officers are prosecuted or even reprimanded for harassing female police officers. That has to change, and police leadership should institute harassment policies so that men and women know how they’re expected to behave. Policies to protect the victims of sexual harassment would go a long way in terms of providing security and safety for women on the police force, rather than creating a climate that breeds sexual assault.

The lack of women on the police force isn’t just damaging to the women who want to work within the police force: it can be devastating for female victims of sexual assaults outside of the police force as well. In a conservative Afghani society, women are much less likely to report a rape or sexual assault to an entirely male police force. They’d be facing the same type of ridicule and disbelief that women in the 70s and 80s faced reporting their crimes to American police officers. Police skepticism, in fact, can be a huge contributing factor that deters women from reporting sexual assault. Encouraging a larger female presence on the Afghani police could have a wider impact on Afghani communities, causing more and more women to report their attackers.