When Teresa Daniel Surur asked her children to quit their jobs in the South Sudan National Police Service (SSNPS) and go back to school, she based the advice on her own experience.

Regimental Sargeant Major Surur knew well enough the high cost of failing to complete one's education. She herself had joined the Warrap State force in 1986 with better educated male colleagues who rose quickly through the ranks, while she felt her own promotion path – and that of other women – was limited.

Sgt. Maj. Surur is one of many women in the state police who feel held back. To help reverse this trend, the SSNPS Women's network was recently launched in Kuajok to advance the profile of women police and lay down strategies to increase their number.

"The association was formed to help with equal opportunities, equal duties and equal promotion for policewomen," said the chairperson of the network, First Lieutenant Martha Golla Nyerded. "A policewoman has to do a police job, not to clean floors or make tea."

According to Warrap State Police Commissioner Major General Nicola Dimo Biajio, women in the state must be empowered through education.

"Our women here are lacking education," she said. "They need to be brought up (to a higher level). We don't want to leave anyone behind, we want to go together."

First Lieutenant Elizabeth Ajak Lual agreed, saying she believed that the biggest challenge for women police officers is illiteracy.

"Education is the most powerful tool for the advancement of women and is crucial for any future aspirations," she said.

As Lieut. Lual's own education was interrupted by the war, she hoped the newly established network would help her gain more access to training.

Lance Corporal Teresa Aman Yel, whose dream is to one day become a governor, took matters into her own hands and joined evening adult education. Now an office assistant, she said there were still many challenges women faced in their quest to rise in professions.

Many of the policewomen, for instance, are also mothers who lack amenities like transport that might have helped them balance different duties, Corp. Yel said.

Apart from supporting police women in accessing education and promotion, the network will tackle issues of sexual harassment in the workplace and availability of female officers for investigation of rape cases, according to Lieut. Nyerded.

But she recognized the situation could only change with persistence and capacity building of female police personnel.

To this end, UN Police have worked jointly with the State Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare to train more than 40 SSNPS officers, including members of the SSNPS Women's Network, in gender, child and vulnerable persons' protection.

"We will also work with the newly established Special Protection Unit for investigation of cases involving women and children' said Jovy Arceo, UN Police Gender, Child and Vulnerable Persons' Protection Officer.