QUETTA –Police in the country’s southwest Balochistan Province have appointed their first woman Station House Officer (SHO).
The top cop of the mineral-rich province Abdul Khaliq Sheikh appointed Sobia Khanum as an officer in-charge at the Cantt Police Station in Quetta.
IGP Sheikh, hailing services of the woman officer, said that women officers were performing their duties with due professionalism.
The establishment of a police station specifically for women is a step forward for gender equality in Pakistan.
This initiative comes after the province of Balochistan, the poorest in the nation, launched its first women’s police station earlier to make law enforcement more accessible to women.
The station was inaugurated by the Inspector General (IG) of Balochistan Police Mohsin Hassan Butt. This is significant because it comes nearly three decades after the first such facility was set up in Pakistan by the first Muslim woman Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
The southwestern region is known for poor development indicators and low literacy rate – less than 27 percent among women.
