Police Cadets Step Up their Support to Gender Equality
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Nakorn Pathom, Thailand – Ahead of International Women’s Day, the Royal Police Cadet Academy in partnership with the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), the Embassy of Sweden and UN Women organized the Youth Dialogue on Gender Equality with Police Cadets, in support of the HeForShe and SpeakUp SpeakOut Campaigns at the Royal Police Cadet Academy, Nakorn Pathom, on Monday 7 March 2016.
“Young people are the driving force in society, not yet dominated by patriarchal social norms”, said Dr. Kittipong Kittayarak, TIJ Executive Director.
The dialogue was to promote awareness and understanding among young people on gender equality and gender sensitivity, to create space for young people to discuss existing social and cultural norms that underpin gender stereotypes, discrimination and inequalities in society, and to introduce the HeForShe Campaign initiated by UN Women and rolled out in Thailand in partnership with the Embassy of Sweden, TIJ and other national partners and to introduce the TIJ SpeakUp SpeakOut Campaign as tools for the promotion of gender equality and ending violence against women. The Royal Police Cadet Academy of Thailand reaffirmed its support to gender equality on the eve of the International Women’s Day, where 430 police cadets attended the Youth Dialogue.
“The HeForShe journey begins with a simple affirmation that gender equality is not only a women’s issue, but a human rights issue that requires the participation and commitment of men and boys”, said Anna-Karin Jatfors, Deputy Regional Director of UN Women Asia and the Pacific.
The co-organizers aimed for the event to enhance understanding of police cadets, officials and the society of gender equality related issues, such as access to justice for women, gender sensitive approach to the protection of women’s human rights in justice administration, equal participation, roles and opportunities between women and men in public and private life and ending violence against women. The Youth Dialogue with Police Cadets was a space to discuss current roles of police cadets as young people to promote gender equitable society as well as their future roles as police officers in protection of women as front-liners of the justice system.
“As men, we benefit from gender equality; we have a responsibility to speak out”, said H.E Ambassador Staffan Herrström who honoured the occasion with his remarks.
UN Women have organized trainings for male and female police investigative officers on the protection of women, ending violence against women and on the Domestic Violence Law, and provided training for the first and the second batch of female graduates from the Royal Police Cadet Academy. Following a 2012 training with the police cadets on which the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) partnered with UN Women, OAG has allocated their own funding to continue the training to-date to all third year police cadets. All in all, UN Women has provided training to 555 male and female police cadets/investigative officers from 2012-2015.
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