Female Police officers have been advised to form an association to champion their welfare in the service.
At a forum of the Kenya Association of Women in Policing (KAWP) held at the former Provincial Headquarters in Kisumu on Wednesday, female Police officers were challenged to take up their leadership roles to raise their profiles in the Police Service.
KAWP National Secretary Lucy Nduati who spoke at the sensitisation workshop attended by female Police officers from Nyanza and Western regions, urged those officers to stop focusing a lot on their gender based weaknesses and instead come out stronger and stronger.
“We need to be strong, remain committed to service delivery and stop the culture of complaining because we all know that we owe service to this great nation,” said Nduati.
She further urged the officers not to avoid responsibilities assigned to them by giving flimsy excuses, saying such neglect of responsibilities could be used against them by their fellow colleagues from the opposite gender which will compromise their competence.
“Let us speak in one voice, understand our work as ladies because we need to know what we were sworn-in to do. This will in turn raise the profile of women serving in the Police Force,’’ said Nduati.
She added that KWAP was registered in July 9 2013 to help empower female Police officers and build their capacity in the public service sector.
Members of the Association are drawn from the Regular Police, Administration Police, Prison Services, Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
However, women from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) are not members since the constitution bars them from being members of a registered association.