Syalu Maharana, 33, was juggling motherhood duties alongside her demanding full-time role as an officer with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) when she received the call for her first overseas deployment. She was selected to be a part of the Indian contingent of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (UNMIL).
The year was 2009. Liberia was emerging out of a protracted civil war strife that had wrecked the West African country into ruins. The two civil wars killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions.
Maharana loved to take on challenges. And she fit the bill. Only those officers who met the stringent criteria of ten years of service and physical and mental fitness qualified for the job. As a trained police officer involved with enforcing law and order and maintaining national security, the opportunity to be a part of an international mission to restore peace and rebuild a war-torn country was too significant to pass up. Even if it meant leaving her three-year-old toddler behind. She steeled up her emotions and signed up to join the all-women contingent.
“It was an eye-opening experience and a big cultural shock to interact with different nationalities. We had the power to empower people who are victims of ethnic violence and armed rebellion,” says Maharana, now 48, recalling her one-year stint as the Chief Operations Officer of the Fully Formed Female Police Unit (FFPU).
India has one of the largest contingents of female peacekeepers with the UN and was the first country to deploy an all-women FFPU contingent in Liberia. The FFPU comprising 125 women was deployed in the capital city of Monrovia for a year to support Liberia’s political transition toward lasting peace. After the end of the civil war in 2005, the UN brokered an agreement for an interim transitional government under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who served as the president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018 and made history as Africa’s first elected and longest-serving female head of state.
The country was still reeling under ethnic unrest. The UN female peacekeepers were tasked with extensive security and social duties, from maintaining law and order to patrolling streets day and night to training Liberian police personnel.
“The blue helmets of the UN were respected. Liberian people were impressed with the all-women contingent. They looked at us with pride and we felt proud wearing the uniform,” Maharana recalls.
Liberia was the first overseas mission for women officers. The earlier two Indian contingents had left a positive mark which eased their complexities in interacting with the locals. “It was a big achievement for us that even the President of the country sought a part of our contingent for her own security,” she says.
The UNMIL ran from 2003 to 2018. After her mission in Liberia, Maharana served in Dantewada as the only female officer in an all-male contingent, and later in Kashmir and Ahmedabad. She was promoted to the rank of Commanding Officer and went on to lead one of the six all-women battalions of the CRPF.
Shweta Desai is a senior editor based in Mumbai and reports on politics, conflicts, human rights, culture and gender.
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This article is a part of Outlook's March 11, 2025 Women's Day special issue 'Women at Work', which explores the experiences of women in roles traditionally occupied by men. It appeared in print as 'To Liberia, With Peace’.
