Afghan National Police: Recruiting Women Carol Giacomo, who covers defense policy for the editorial board, is in Afghanistan this week on a trip for journalists organized by NATO. Here's a dispatch from her visit to the Afghan National Police Training Center. KABUL - A woman in an ill-fitting Afghan police uniform arrived for an interview at the Afghan National Police Training Center on Monday with a black veil across her face. I thought she seemed passive, and timid, but I was considerably off the mark. A 35-year-old widow with eight young children, Hora (she gave only her first name) has a $240-a-month job with the A.N.P. and is now one of 26 women taking a basic training course at the academy in Kabul. Apart from her children, she hadn't told her family about her employment because, as she explained to a small group of journalists, she feared that some of her relatives might be allied with the Taliban. Her discretion is understandable: The Afghan police have been a frequent target of the insurgents. But Hora was resolute. "When we have the weapons, the equipment, the handcuffs, we can do anything" - even arrest members of the Taliban, she said. Women are about half the population yet comprise only 9 percent - 1,340 - of the national police force. The Afghan government set a goal of raising that number to 5,000 by 2014 but in a new report, the Pentagon says "women are likely to remain under-represented in the ANP for the foreseeable future." General Ghulam Mujtaba Patang, who runs the police program and insists that he wants to improve its quality, says he plans incentives to persuade more women to join, including transportation to and from work for women concerned about security . The training complex already has a day care center. But cultural biases are a big impediment to expanding the female police pool. Many Afghan men don't want their wives to work and, according to the Pentagon, many provincial commanders don't accept women. Hora and other women trainees who participated in the interview also mentioned bureaucratic obstacles, including having to wait months before recruiting officers even deigned to accept their applications.