Female Officers Cross Cultural Frontier in Iraq

[GRClarkesq]

Women on Patrol Near Iran Brave Insults and Disapproval
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 3, 2004; Page A01
BASHMA BORDER CROSSING, Iraq -- "How can your family allow you to work a job like this?"

"You are shameful."

"Women were created for being in the house."

Each day, the name-calling and barbs begin almost as soon as Shinaa Rasul slings her AK-47 rifle over her shoulder and steps out of her barracks to the snowy valley that separates her country from Iran. Rasul and 53 others are part of an Iraqi Border Patrol unit stationed on the 920-mile Iranian frontier. And as the patrol's first all-female outfit, they have become a spectacle for the thousands of people who cross between the two countries each day.

When people spot the patrols, with their neat brown uniforms and firearms, Rasul said, they typically have one of two reactions: "They are either upset or afraid."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50547-2004Jan2.html