The Female Factor
By Doreen Carvajal
MONROVIA-- When darkness comes to Congo Town, women in crisp uniforms take the streets, patrolling with Kalashnikov rifles and long, black hair tucked into baby-blue caps.
The brisk sergeant in command, Monia Gusain, matter of factly calls them "my men." But the stern Indian women facing her are actually wives and mothers who wage peace for a living on the rutted dirt roads of Liberia.
The women -- part of a special female United Nations police unit from India -- lead dual lives: stamping out street crime by night and standing guard under the steamy equatorial sun outside the Monrovia headquarters of the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. When they retreat, home is a military barracks where they tell bedtime stories to their toddlers via video conference calls.
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The United Nations is intensifying efforts to recruit women for peacekeeping missions that seek to mend what war has wrought.
The theory -- which has evolved since pioneering female peacekeepers started participating in U.N. missions in the Balkans in the 1990s -- is that women employ distinctive social skills in a rugged macho domain. They are being counted on to bring calm to the streets and the barracks, acting as public servants instead of invaders.
"When female soldiers are present, the situation is closer to real life, and as a result the men tend to behave," said Gerard J. DeGroot, a history professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland who has written books about women in the military.
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