In September 2003 I attended the Training Conference of the International Association of Women Police held in San Francisco, USA, where I was awarded the Leadership Award for 2002 for the work I have performed in Police Missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2001.

I felt deeply honoured and privileged to receive this award, the culmination of 2.5 years of effort in a variety of roles within the International Police Task Force of the United Nations and, since January 2003, with the new European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It was a delight and an honour to meet other policewomen from all over the world, some of whom were also rewarded at the conference for their courage, dedication to policing, community service and leadership.

So, who am I? I am Christine Longmore, a 44 year old police officer from North Yorkshire Police in the United Kingdom with 26.5 years police service. I currently hold the rank of Inspector, but served as a Temporary Chief Inspector during my deployment to Bosnia and Herzegovina. I have been an operational police officer for my entire career, working in a variety of roles, including criminal investigation, internal discipline investigations and uniform patrol at Constable, Sergeant and Inspector rank.

My supervisory experience commenced with my promotion to the rank of Sergeant in 1981. Since that time I have managed different teams of police officers and civilian support staff in all spheres of operational policing. This range of experience was of tremendous benefit to me following my secondment by the British Government to this small Balkan State called Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a barbaric armed conflict took place during 1992-1995. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established to hear evidence of the terrible acts of mass murder, torture, rape and ‘ethnic cleansing’ that characterized the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

British police officers have been deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) since 1997 to assist other international police officers in the reform of the Bosnian police service. Many other nations have been contributing to this type of policing mission for several years. I arrived in BiH in April 2001 as the Contingent Commander of 80 UK police officers. We became members of the United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) comprising over 2,000 international police officers and civilian experts from over 43 nations. Our task was to co-locate with the BiH police officers to teach them how to perform civilian police roles and responsibilities in accordance with international democratic standards. A huge restructuring programme was conducted by the UN, reducing the numbers of serving BiH police officers from 44,000 to 17,000 by 2002.

In addition to my responsibilities for the welfare and support of my UK Contingent members who were deployed to different locations in BiH, I served as the Adviser to the Minister of Interior in Tuzla in the North East of BiH. This Canton comprised 1,600 Bosnian police officers, and at that time the Minister of Interior, a political appointee, had the power and responsibilities similar to that of a Chief Constable in the UK, or a Director of Police for example.

My primary tasks were to manage a team of international police officers who were co-located with Bosnian police officers in CID, Uniform patrol, Internal Discipline and Traffic, to try to improve police performance at the junior and middle ranking levels. I cooperated closely with the Russian UN Political Adviser in the mentoring and advising of the Minister of Interior in all operational police matters, and also in respect of the core UN programmes. These included minority recruitment of women and ethnic minorities, the Police Commissioner project (to ensure separation of the police from politics), the establishment of fair and transparent recruitment and selection policies, internal discipline issues and harmonization of BiH legislation.

During this time I also coordinated investigations into the activities of corrupt senior BiH police officers within the Canton. The Minister of Interior was forced to dismiss some of these officers as a consequence of the work that I and my team performed. Other more junior officers were discovered to have false educational qualifications and war crime backgrounds which resulted in their dismissal. Progress was slow and often we all became frustrated at the procrastination and obstruction of some police officers and politicians to the reforms that the UN IPTF was trying to introduce.

In July 2003 I transferred to the main UN HQ in Sarajevo to establish the UN ‘STOP’ Programme – the Stop Trafficking Operations Programme. This initiative involved deploying teams of international police officers in IPTF to work alongside the local BiH police in an effort to combat the trafficking of women into and through BiH for the purposes of sexual slavery. This is a major problem in BiH, where females are bought and sold predominantly from Romania, Moldavia and the Ukraine, then transported by organized criminals and held captive in bars and nightclubs for the purposes of prostitution.

I was responsible for creating a training programme for the selected IPTF personnel, writing the strategy, establishing policies and procedures and obtaining the necessary resources for the IPTF officers. This counter trafficking programme was highly controversial and sensitive in view of persistent allegations by the local and international media and other organizations within BiH that UN and IPTF personnel were allegedly involved in the trafficking and sexual abuse of females in the bars and nightclubs in BiH. These allegations have featured in several television documentaries and newspaper articles since.

Later during my mission in IPTF, I was appointed as the Deputy Chief of Staff with responsibility for internal discipline investigations. I held specific responsibility to monitor and ensure effective investigation of all allegations of sexual misconduct involving prostitutes and trafficked women by IPTF personnel. Additionally, I was involved in managing logistics and communications, personnel and internal training, and performance assessment. I remained in this post until April 2002 when my Mission with the UN ended.

In May 2002 I was again seconded by the UK Government, with the agreement of my Chief Constable, to work on the Planning Team for the first European Union Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the mandate of the United Nations was to terminate on 31 December 2002.

My work with the European Union Police Mission based in Sarajevo involved participating in the recruitment and selection of 500 international police officers, 50 civilian experts and 320 local staff for the new Mission. I assisted in the creation of 95 separate job descriptions, a standardized job application form, essential criteria for all mission members and the Call for Contribution documentation to apply to all participating Member States for suitably qualified personnel. Other responsibilities involved contributions to the Standard Operating Procedures and the Personnel Database.

In November 2002 I was appointed as the Chief of Internal Control Unit responsible to the Deputy Police Head of Mission for all internal investigations within the EUPM. I assisted in the establishment of internal discipline policies and procedures, investigated sensitive internal disciplinary matters, created all the relevant forms and database and conducted induction training for new mission members. I also developed the EUPM Security and Evacuation Plan.

In July 2003 I joined the Advisory Team at the Federal Ministry of Interior in Sarajevo as an adviser to the Internal Control Unit, mentoring and advising the local senior police officer responsible for investigating malpractice and misconduct by the Bosnian police. It is evident that some BiH politicians and police officers continue to obstruct and impede progress in international efforts to depoliticize the police and create a fully democratic, accountable and effective police service for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

My Police Mission ends in December 2003 and I will return to UK policing in York, North Yorkshire. I have benefited tremendously in terms of my personal and professional goals due to the rich diversity of roles, responsibilities and opportunities I have experienced in the UN and the EUPM in the 2.5 years I have worked here. The dedication, professionalism, political insight and courage of many individuals I met helped to counter-balance the frustrations and slow progress experienced at times. Trying to change the policing culture in a post-communist, post-conflict nation requires enormous patience, persistence, international cooperation, coordination and funding in an environment where national politics plays such a significant and damaging role in the police and the judiciary.

I am so grateful to have been granted the opportunities I have had, thanks to the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire and the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I encourage other women police officers to seek every opportunity to work in international Police Missions. The presence of women in post conflict policing missions is so essential for many reasons.