Check Out Those Burqas, Corporal Lettre

26-year-old Jennifer Lettre, from Granby, Quebec, had become the first female police officer stationed at an Afghan National Police substation. Mohammad Safai, the ANP chief of police had wanted a woman to be available for the search process at the substation. Given that it would upset religious mores to have a burqa-wearer searched by a man, the Taliban has taken advantage of the supposition that all of those under the burqas are indeed female. The men have been making women into their mules and loading them down with contraband, such as weapons, in order to get them past the checkpoints. Taliban men have also donned the garment more than once, themselves, to elude detention.
When I first heard about Lettre's posting, back in late November of this year, I wondered how she would fare, helping to train the Afghan police, as well as working at the checkpoints. I expected there to be intractable resistance from her male peers at the substation to working with her. I felt sure her days might even be numbered, since the Taliban, I am sure, feel she is some kind of an abomination. The Zhare district near the police substation where she is posted is currently a hotbed of Taliban insurgency. There is every possibility they will set out to eradicate with violence the perceived threat she poses to what they view as the essential and total domination of the distaff side of the population.
Lettre has said that she expected resistance to her work as well, because the Afghan police "didn't want some woman on their checkpoints because of the religion thing", but Safai says his men do what they are told and after her first night there, it would seem he is right. On Lettre's first night, an interpreter was brought in so the men could meet with their new comrade and fire off all their questions. Their concerns must have been met to their satisfaction; because Lettre says they now tell her, "You are like our little sister."
I love the whole situation. With a woman at the checkpoint, there can be no demurring to a search of any and all wearing a burqa. Since the one now doing the search is a Canuck, you know that protocol will be followed to the letter if the search revealed anything anatomical dangling where they should be nothing swinging in the breeze. I find it difficult, however, not to think at least a little of an alternate scenario in which the offending appendage is discovered and the safety catch "slips", leaving a murderous miscreant ready for the slag heap. You know bloody well that no decent man with peaceful intent would be trying to slip through a checkpoint under cover of the burqa.