Having worked as a senior police commissioner for almost a decade, Commissioner Hassane Haousseize Zouera, 39, has played a key role in the activities of the SWEDD project’s legal platform, in her capacity as head of the Division for the Protection of Women and Children. Supported by 107 brigades across the country, this Niamey-based unit has a number of responsibilities relating to public order and citizen protection.

Commissioner Zouera is responsible for detecting warning signs of criminal behaviour, particularly among children living on the street, assisting children and women in distress, monitoring the placement of children at risk, and implementing emergency measures to protect children and women. With a Master’s degree in economic and business law, she first headed the Economic and Financial Investigations Division at the Department of Criminal Investigation.

In 2015, she was appointed to run the Research, Regulations and Statistics Division at the Department of Public Safety, and then in 2020 the Division for the Protection of Women and Children. She is a member of various national committees, and is particularly involved in the committee for the transit of vulnerable people evacuated from Libya to Niger. As part of her duties, she provides training on gender-based violence at the National Police Academy.

She has provided awareness-raising for 218 officers of various ranks, including sessions on interview techniques, report writing and data collection. This skills-building has had tangible results. Two data-collection campaigns in the field identified 2,628 cases of gender-based violence in 2020. The slogan “Zero tolerance for gender-based violence” carries weight when used by Commissioner Zouera, who is respected for her frankness and integrity.

In 2021, she received the United Nations Population Award, which honours individuals and organizations for outstanding contributions to population, development and reproductive health issues. It was awarded for her contribution to making Niger a safer place for girls and women.  Commissioner Zouera helped draw up the action plan for the SWEDD project’s legal platform, which she supports, as well as Niger’s draft directory of legal texts relating to women’s empowerment, including sexual and reproductive health, girls’ education and gender-based violence.

She is an admired and sought-after individual, readily sharing her belief, born of common sense and discipline, that “a woman is capable of moving mountains if she really wants to. All she needs to do is set a goal and make every effort to achieve it. It’s not magic and it’s not impossible!”

Find out how the SWEDD project is changing lives in Benin and across sub-Saharan Africa in the book SWEDD in Action: Promoting Women's Full Potential here