Dubai: Female police officers will now be on call to help women metro passengers.
Dubai Police Academy recently trained 29 female police officers to handle metro security in main Metro stations, said Colonel Abdullah Al Gaithi, Acting Director of Organizational Security and Emergency of Dubai Police to Gulf News.
The female officers underwent rigorous training for six months at the academy on ways to deal with passengers, security and emergency matters, reading body language, and detecting suspicious moves, he said.
The 29 officers' age ranges from 18 — 20 year old, who are all high school graduates except for one who is a university graduate, said Colonel Al Gaithi.
"The increase in the number of passengers has called for introducing woman officers into Metro security. The average passengers riding the metro on a daily basis have reached up to 115,000," he said.
Another challenge is when officers are suspicious of women passengers and requires them to be inspected.
"From our field observation, we have realised that some male officers are facing awkward situations with passengers. Female passengers from the GCC prefer dealing with woman officers as part of their culture," he said while adding that they have had Arab passengers protesting to be inspected by male officers.
"We aim to respect the woman's modesty and I believe with the new force of woman the situation will ease in this regard," said Col Al Gaithi.
