Women police officers honoured by Compol

They keep the peace in the majority of Belizean households and there’s no reason to doubt that they can do the same thing on the nation’s streets. I’m talking about women as cops.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Corporal Sharmaine Robateau is just one of the one hundred and fifty police female officers on staff who help maintain law and order in Belize. Today the women who make up ten percent of the police force were honoured as part of ongoing activities observing Women’s Week.

Gerald Westby, Police Commissioner
“They contribute just as much as the men or equally I must say, very equally as the men. As a matter of fact we have always had great admiration for the tenacity and the dedication of female officers.”

But it was not until recently that policewomen started getting the recognition they deserve by being appointed to key positions.

Gerald Westby
“And they have really rose through the ranks and they will continue to do so. We have a very open and no gender discrimination within the police department.”

Like Maureen Leslie, the first female to be promoted to deputy commissioner; Superintendent Louise Willis, officer commanding Benque police station; Assistant Superintendent of Police Sandra Bodden commandant of the police training academy in Belmopan; Sergeant Marcia Moody, Head of the Domestic Violence Unit and Yolanda Murray who is the officer in charge of community policing.

Today, the female officers’ dedication and time were rewarded by spending the time out of uniform socializing with fellow officers and touring sites in Belize City. Superintendent Murray says it was a great opportunity for the women to bond because they rarely do get the time to interact with each other. Murray also says it is time to celebrate because conditions have improved for women.

Yolanda Murray, Head, Community Policing
“Well April this year will make me thirty-five years and throughout the years definitely there have been improvement and never as much as we are having in these recent two or three years, I should say. It has been completely different that we try to get the women together, especially Mrs. Leslie and myself, with the support of the Commissioner. He never object to any ideas that we come up with and we are working to make sure we have better comradeship within the department, that we can get together as a group, and take some time off and be together because we are separated all over the country and so we need to do things like these. In last year we had our reunion, our second officers’ reunion in Belmopan, where all the women officers had converged and we had a two days conference, and beside that we had fun.”

But as these female officers enjoyed the day, this week men and women are being encouraged to unite to end domestic violence and abuse, a situation Commissioner Westby says will not be tolerated under his command.

Gerald Westby
“And we must work at ending domestic violence, especially violence against women on a whole. I have made it abundantly clear in the department that any officer who is caught or are caught abusing any female, whether a member of the staff or outside, I will deal with them more severely because we must lead by example.”

Following a tour of the Museum of Belize, the police women enjoyed the rest of the day at Bacab Eco Park.

Yolanda Murray
“For the police department it is very stressful and you know that for women, as we said, they have their homes to attend to, they have their children to attend to but they have been dedicated, there have been many committed women or I should say almost all of them. You will find the few that sometimes maybe are not as committed as others but we try to encourage them to get that same committedness about them so that they can strive and be better persons in this community and in the department.”

At a presentation tonight at the Bliss, Inspector Diana Hall will be one of ten women honoured as outstanding in their various fields. Hall is a twenty-three year veteran of the department and currently heads Community Policing in Belize City.