KABUL — She wears a head scarf instead of a cap, but otherwise Col. Jamila Bayaz looks like any other district police chief in Afghanistan as she reviews checkpoints in Kabul.
Bayaz, 50, is the first woman to be promoted to run an entire district — the highest front-line appointment for an Afghan policewoman. Just a few days on the job, she said she feels up to the challenge even though policewomen are among the Taliban’s top targets.
“I work day and night,” she said, walking through a money-exchange bazaar at the heart of Kabul’s District 1. “I am ready to serve. I am not scared, nor am I afraid.”
Women have made much progress since the days of Taliban rule, when they were forced to cover their heads and faces with burqas and banned from going to school or outdoors without a male relative as an escort.
They have greater access to education, health care and the workplace but still face discrimination, domestic abuse and militant attacks in this ultraconservative Islamic society.
Bayaz’s district — one of 10 in the city of 5 million people — houses the presidential palace, ministries, the central bank and the main money exchange and gold markets. She was appointed Monday to oversee it
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During the Taliban’s harsh five-year rule, Bayaz stayed at home taking care of her children.
“I was a housewife taking care of my family,” she said. “Women are part of society, and since they left, more and more are getting involved, and they need to join the police.”
