Suzan El Hajj
2011 MENA Fellow, Lebanon
Major engineer Suzan El Hajj is Chief of the Technical & Intelligence department in the Counter Terrorism Unit for the Internal Security Forces, Lebanon. She is also Secretary for the Recruitment Committee of Female Officers, where she lectures soldiers on gender issues to pave the way for new female officers, encourage cooperation and convince soldiers of the importance of women’s participation which will strengthen trust between them.
Major Hajj would like to help Internal Security Forces (ISF) improve its performance and increase public trust through:
• protecting human rights and freedoms by drafting a Human Right law that meets international standards regarding ISF members and its detainees
• Improving Traffic Management and Road Safety
• Empowering women's role in the force by: amending the current employee's law, drafting a sexual harassment law and creating an Association for Women’s Empowerment in the force
• combating crime by launching a campaign to raise awareness and urge citizens to assist in solving crimes
• Improving the ISF’s crime investigation and analysis capacity
• promoting competence, professionalism and career development within the ISF by creating a Modern Advanced Training Institute
• developing a performance appraisal system
• developing forensic science capacity
Of this wide range of objectives, she will focus during her time in the UK on empowering women’s roles in the ISF.