Twenty-two AMISOM Police officers on Wednesday completed a three-day long training on Gender and Human Rights Protection.

Training, mentoring and giving advice to the Somali Police officers forms an integral part of the AMISOM Police mandate, and the just-completed gender, human rights and child protection workshop will go a long way towards the overall advancement of the AMISOM mandate.

Some key topics that were explored included a general overview and meaning of gender, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, child protection, gender mainstreaming, and gender in policing, among others.

The officers, all gender focal persons included trainers and mentors serving under the police component of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and were selected from five AMISOM sectors of operation.

AMISOM Police Commissioner, Inspector General of Police (AIGP) Augustine Magnus Kailie, who officiated at the closing ceremony of the training urged the officers to apply the knowledge to further their mentoring and training roles.

"Gender is everybody’s business,” stated Commissioner Magnus Kailie.

"You cannot teach others when you are not grounded. Some people may think gender is only about women; it’s not. It’s about everybody. Women, men, children, everybody,” he said.

GENDER DESK

Participants were introduced to both the local and international frameworks governing gender and human rights protection and resolved to work together with their training coordinators in the sectors to include gender and human rights in the training curriculum.

They also intend to champion the establishment of gender desks at every Somali police station as a way of encouraging communities to report violations.

Stella Maranga, AMISOM Gender Officer, said the gender and human rights terrain in Somalia is constantly evolving, with more communities getting enlightened, right from sexual exploitation and abuse discussions in the past, to more broadened issues, thanks to trainings like these.

"We are now talking about more gender issues in Somalia, and for this particular training we spent quite a lot of time talking about the involvement of women in training, that is Somali women in the training of SPF, which again is really another credit to the training team. They are now conscious of the challenges of involving Somali women – they are doing a lot of outreach to encourage more Somali women to attend the training,” Maranga said.