World Fellow Rema Rajeshwari will discuss “Busing the Myths about Women in Security Forces” at the South Asian Society (SAS), where she will be talking about her experience as a woman in police and policing a democracy. She will also be talking about the need to integrate women into all aspects of security forces for operational effectiveness in a changing world. Dinner will be served.
An Indian Police Service officer with a distinguished career of integrity and passion, Rema Rajeshwari has held various responsible and dynamic positions for nearly a decade. She started her career in the Police service as an Assault Commander with the ‘Greyhounds’, an elite special force, which undertakes high risk operations through jungle warfare against left-wing extremists. Working for people who are at the fault lines of the lethal intersection of society and violence, she has been instrumental in running successful operations against extremists, a women- and child-trafficking nexus, and other criminal activities. She has won accolades as the first female Indian Police Service officer from Munnar, Kerala State and as the topper of the Indian Police Service class of 2009. She successfully implemented a much-needed initiative, “Community Outreach Program,” which creates awareness against social vices and runs campaigns such as “Saving Child Brides,” “Child Laborers’ Rescue,” “SHE Teams,” “Legal Literacy for Underprivileged Rural Women,” and “Rehabilitation of Joginis - girls dedicated as servant of god/forced into prostitution”. Her most recent initiative, “Balyaniki Raksha,” is a community outreach program on child safety that works to educate the children of rural India to break the silence around child sexual abuse. Through her collaborative policing efforts, she encourages women to break gender stereotypes and empower them to emerge as leaders. Her research and experience has resulted in publishing articles in major papers and presenting conference papers in numerous organizations.