Last year, the UN's first-ever all-female police unit deployed to Liberia. In this video, which is featured on the front page of the Better World Campaign, Shirin Tahir-Kheli, Senior Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State for Women's Empowerment, describes the successes that this deployment brought to Liberia (check out a longer video here).
This unit was so successful, in fact, that the UN has deployed another such contingent, as reported by Voice of America last week:
A second Indian all-female contingent has been deployed in Liberia for a few months now, showing that women can become the norm for peacekeeping operations. They are also inspiring Liberian women to become part of the country's security reconstruction.The increase in Liberian women joining their country's police force is only one of the benefits that the presence of female police officers has brought to Liberia. In addition to backing up Liberia's police and contributing to the overall security situation, the female peacekeepers, according to Tahir-Kheli, have directly contributed to improved reporting of instances of violence against women and to a corresponding decrease in the actual number of instances of such violence.