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SARAJEVO, August 19 (FENA) - The first website in Bosnia and Herzegovina related to informing citizens about the procedure for filing complaints about the work of police officers was officially presented today at a press conference in Sarajevo.
Also, the position of women in 16 police agencies was presented, and the most important findings of the research of the work of the office/committee for citizens' complaints, as independent mechanisms for the protection of human rights in case of abuse of police powers.
The President of the Association "Network of Female Police Officers" and the project coordinator on behalf of this association within the project "Police and Respect for Human Rights in BiH" Kristina Jozić spoke about the improvement of gender equality in police structures in BiH.
According to her, the fact is that in police structures in BiH, female police officers are underrepresented at all levels, and there are almost no female police officers in senior management positions, i.e. decision-making positions, despite the fact that they make up more than 50 percent of employed.
This, she says, is mostly due to gender stereotypes and prejudices about women as the weaker sex and still about the police as a male occupation. He points out that continuing education is the best way to overcome gender stereotypes and prejudices.
Therefore, within the project "Police and Respect for Human Rights in BiH", a training program was developed for trainers, training for police structures aimed at raising awareness of gender equality in police structures.
Jozić stated that as a final activity, a manual for trainers was published and distributed to all police agencies in BiH.
Secretary-General of the Center for Security Studies and project manager of the project "Police and Respect for Human Rights in BiH" Benjamin Pljevljak presented the findings of the research "The position of women in police agencies in BiH", noting that it focused on at 16 police agencies in BiH.
He stated that the findings of the research showed that 22,137 employees work in these 16 police agencies, and 20 percent of that number are women. Somewhere around 4,413 women are employed in 16 police agencies.
"The findings of the research showed that 66 percent of employed women are in the administration, while the remaining part refers to police officers. The only police agency in BiH that deviates from this rule is the BiH Border Police, where 58 percent of employed women are in the status of police officers," said Pljevljak.
He added that "an even more serious fight is ahead in order to improve the position of women in the police sector in BiH."
He also presented the website "zalbe.ba", which refers to informing citizens about how they are able to file a complaint against the work of police officers. He said that the site is exclusively just informative and that it will be improved in the future.
"The three goals of this site are to better inform citizens in BiH on the competencies of police officers, to inform them on how best to file a complaint against the work of a police officer and to promote offices, i.e. citizen complaint boards," said Pljevljak.
The press conference was organized within the project "Police and Respect for Human Rights in BiH", funded by the European Union through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights.
(FENA) S. R.
