CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 71 of 120

Correct — A, Liberia. India sent the world's first all-female Formed Police Unit on United Nations peacekeeping duty in 2007, and it went to Liberia, to the United Nations Mission in Liberia. The personnel came from the Central Reserve Police Force and its Rapid Action Force. A Formed Police Unit is a cohesive body of police rather than a set of individual officers, deployed for public order duties, crowd control and the protection of UN personnel and property, so the contingent did policing work in support of a country rebuilding its institutions after civil war. Its effect went beyond its own duties — the unit is credited with drawing Liberian women into their own police service and with setting the pattern for female Formed Police Units contributed by other countries since.

• (b)Sudan — India has been a large contributor to UN operations in Sudan and later in South Sudan, which is why this reads plausibly. The all-woman unit was not sent there; it went to the mission in Liberia.
• (c)Burundi — The UN did run an operation in Burundi in the same period, but the Indian female Formed Police Unit was not part of it.
• (d)Croatia — UN peacekeeping in Croatia belongs to the wars of the early 1990s, more than a decade before this deployment, and India's contribution there was of a different kind.

United Nations peacekeeping draws on three kinds of personnel — military contingents, individual police officers, and Formed Police Units, which deploy as complete units with their own command and equipment for public order tasks. India has been among the largest contributors of uniformed personnel across the history of UN peacekeeping. The 2007 deployment to Liberia was the first time any country had sent an entirely female Formed Police Unit, and the Security Council had been pressing troop and police contributors to raise the number of women in the field since Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security in 2000.

The stem gives away that this is a first for India, so the work is in placing the year and the mission rather than the country's role. Liberia is the answer that fits the period: the UN mission there ran from 2003 to 2018, after two civil wars, and its policing task was unusually large because the state's own security institutions had to be rebuilt from the ground up. The other three options are all real theatres of UN activity, which is what makes them workable decoys, but each is either the wrong decade or the wrong Indian contribution. It is also worth knowing why an all-women unit mattered operationally and not only symbolically — women police can reach victims of sexual violence and can work in settings that male officers cannot enter, and their visible presence encourages local women to join the security services.

• India deployed the world's first all-female Formed Police Unit to the United Nations Mission in Liberia in 2007.
• The personnel were drawn from the Central Reserve Police Force and its Rapid Action Force.
• The mission in Liberia ran from 19 September 2003 to 30 March 2018.
• A Formed Police Unit deploys as a self-contained unit for public order duties and the protection of UN personnel and property.
• The Indian unit is credited with encouraging Liberian women to join their own police service and with prompting other countries to contribute female Formed Police Units.

• Choosing Sudan because India's peacekeeping presence there was large. The all-woman unit went to Liberia.
• Confusing a Formed Police Unit with a military contingent. This was a police deployment.
• Placing the deployment in the 1990s. It was 2007, within a mission that began in 2003.

As a country identification for a named Indian first, as a question on India's contribution to a particular mission, or as a statement item on women in peacekeeping.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Indian all-woman Formed Police Unit deployed to Liberia in 2007 was drawn from which force?

  • (a)The Border Security Force
  • (b)The Central Reserve Police Force
  • (c)The Indo-Tibetan Border Police
  • (d)The Assam Rifles

  Answer(b) The Central Reserve Police Force — the personnel came from the CRPF and its Rapid Action Force.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In United Nations peacekeeping, a Formed Police Unit is

  • (a)a group of individual police officers seconded one by one
  • (b)a self-contained police unit deployed for public order duties
  • (c)a military battalion assigned to policing
  • (d)a civilian advisory team on police reform

  Answer(b) a self-contained police unit deployed for public order duties — it comes with its own command and equipment, unlike individually deployed police officers.