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Male dominance in Police Department robs women the chance of getting top positions
Sri Lanka’s first female Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police was appointed in September–nearly 70 years after women were first recruited to the force.
It was a cause for celebration. But the mood is sober amongst other senior policewomen who are now eligible for DIG promotion in five years. They point out that the male-dominated Police Department has still not created any cadre positions for women above the rank of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP).
How, then, did Bimshani Jasin Arachchi ascend to the position of DIG this year? She joined the police force in 1997 as a Sub-Inspector of Police (SI). Three years later, she applied to be absorbed directly to a single vacant slot that fell vacant for a female Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP).
Ms Jasin Arachchi passed her interviews and sat the exam but was rejected because she was some inches too short. She challenged the decision in the Supreme Court which ruled in her favour and, in 2016, was finally promoted to ASP.
On an appeal to the National Police Commission (NPC), Ms Jasin Arachchi’s appointment was backdated to December 31, 2007. That’s where the problem began. In the Police Department, even 24 hours makes a difference when it relates to promotions.
While fighting her long court case, Ms Jasin Arachchi had remained an SI till she was promoted, along with others in her grade, to Inspector of Police (IP) in 2006. In the meantime, ten other women from her batch gained the requisite experience and rose through the ranks to ASP. But as their promotions were dated January 1, 2008, Ms Jasin Arachchi suddenly became a day senior to all of them and to other male ASPs granted promotions on January 1, 2008.
That wasn’t all. On other appeals to the NPC, the Police Department also granted Ms Jasin Arachchi promotion to SP and SSP. Between 2016 and 2019–within a space of three years–she rose from IP to ASP to SP to SSP and then, in September this year, to DIG.
This has created much consternation, even resentment, among higher male and female officers of Police Department. Because, not only did they train, work and sit exams for their promotions, they insist that anyone occupying the DIG slot must have the necessary experience to represent the Inspector General of Police (IGP) as expected.
Senior women police officers, while happy that someone of their gender has reached DIG position, point to one glossed-over fact. The police have still not created any cadre slots for women beyond the rank of SSP, the highest gazetted position they can hold at present.
Ms Jasin Arachchi was quietly slipped into a male cadre vacancy and that, too, as a “field DIG”. This means, she assumed the duties of that position with none of the benefits such as salary increments. She can’t take over as full DIG as she did not complete the required seven years in a previous rank.
The lack of female representation at top level has been a longstanding problem in Sri Lanka’s Police Department. “We recommended those promotions to Bimshani because we have to respect the decisions of the Supreme Court which held her to be the most senior,” said Savithri Wijesekera, NPC member. “But there is still no cadre for women DIGs in the police force. The IGP said, ‘We will give one to start with’.”
Ms Wijesekera, during her time at the NPC, fought tooth-and-nail to inject some semblance of gender balance and equality into the police force. That was how, in 2019, the Commission prevailed upon the Police Department to grant nine SSP positions to women. They got leftovers after the men were promoted. But the police ‘scheme of recruitment’ still has only two chairs for female SPs, one for female SSP and nothing above that.
“The men in the Department don’t want these women to rise to those levels,” Ms Wijesekera said. “Nobody is really interested.”
The male SSP who lost his DIG slot by virtue of Ms Jasin Arachchi receiving it is also unhappy, sources said. Meanwhile, when the nine women now rightfully serving as SSPs apply to the board for DIG promotions in 2025, there will be a question of where to put them.
Among this lot are female officers who are still fighting a gender discrimination case that they filed in the Supreme Court against the Police Department in 2016. It seeks an increase in female cadre positions from ranks of SP and above. And the petitioners are all from the 1997 batch of SIs to which Ms Jasin Arachchi also belongs.
Separately, 14 male police officers who were affected by the Department granting a male cadre position to Ms Jasinha Arachchi have sent a letter of demand to the IGP urging him to reverse the decision and to create separate slots for women. They have also threatened legal action.
Some relief could be brought if a 2006 Cabinet decision–taken when Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa was President–to allocate 15 percent of vacancies in every rank to women is implemented. Then, women rising through the ranks are guaranteed of career progression.
In December last year, Acting IGP C D Wickremeratne sent a recommendation to the Finance Ministry’s Department of Management Services for a new scheme of recruitment that allows for 16 gazetted women ASPs, four SPs and one SSP. It fell short of 15 percent. And there were still no female DIG or SDIG slots and certainly no possibility of a female IGP. Even this proposal is yet to be implemented.
By contrast, there are 162 vacancies for male SPs, 169 for SSPs, 46 for DIGs and 12 for SDIGs. Most of the senior women officers who have been maturing, gaining experiencing and rising through the ranks have many years left in service but nowhere left to go. And the Police Department knows that.
“The men who rule that Department don’t even question the status quo,” said an internal source, who did not wish to be named. “The biggest issue here is that there is no procedure to accommodate the women. They don’t want to fix this correctly, proportionately. They tinker around with temporary solutions, like trying to push a rubber ball underwater.”
Apart from fighting the system–including with court cases and appeals to Department heads and NPC–women police also have to prove their mettle to male bosses. There are attempts to show they don’t work as efficiently as men. Women were like “bait, surrounded by a skulk of foxes”, one officer said, adding that it was “a major struggle”.
By 2025, there must either be vacancies specifically created for women or clear reasons given for why every woman who deserves a promotion in the Police Department isn’t getting one.