Iranian policewomen attending intensive military courses including judo, fencing and using firearms.

TEHRAN, January 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - About 400 newly qualified Iranian policewomen will soon be joining their male counterparts, and working on the streets in Tehran.

It will be the first time since the revolution in 1979 that women will graduate from the police university and become fully trained officers, reported the BBC News Online Sunday, January 5.

In the past 20 years or so, women have mostly been restricted to working in administration. The new recruits have been training since 1999 at a complex in Tehran.

Aged between 17 and 23 years old, they have spent the last three years attending intensive military courses, including judo, fencing, using firearms and laying mines.

The only courses still restricted to men are the use of heavy machine-guns and grenade launchers.

Since the early years of the revolution, women have only worked behind the scenes in the police force, mostly in administration, or to help their male colleagues conduct body searches of female suspects.

However, because of the sensitive nature of Iran - and with more and more crimes being committed by women, especially in the smuggling of goods - the government decided that it was necessary to have policewomen back on the beat.

The new officers will spend most of their time investigating crimes committed by women and children.

But if there is no male officer around, they will also be expected to tackle a male suspect.

Much time has been spent trying to decide what they will wear.

Taking inspiration from Islamic, European and African countries, they have finally come up with the Iranian solution.

Apparently they will not need to wear the black chador - instead their uniform will consist of trousers and a long coat, and maybe even a ski suit, depending on the mission.

The new recruits are to graduate in March and are expected to be on the beat shortly afterwards.

The new move falls in line with several changes introduced to the status of women in Iran allowing them to line up for free courses on motor-biking and applying to become taxi drivers.

The cause of two-wheeling women has even been taken up by Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of powerful former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Motorbikes are also roughly five times cheaper than cars in Iran.

So far 11,000 women have already signed up for such courses, said Mohammad Reza Farhad-Sheikhahmad, head of sales for a major Iranian motorcycle manufacturer.

On the same line, women taxi drivers in the streets of Iran started to prevail after the Iranian Ministry of Interiors authorized women, who want to be taxi drivers, to get a license.

The latest statistic by the Ministry showed that 124 Iranian women are currently driving taxis with a sign reading “Weiza Zanan” (Women only), touring the streets of some Iranian cities, especially the capital Tehran.

The move was welcomed by women, who find it embarrassing to have to sit beside stranger men in taxis, or those who suffer economic problems and want to work as drivers to earn a living.

After the success of the "women taxi drivers" move in some Iranian cities, a group of women, who want to join the club of women drivers, urged the government to generalize the idea in the capital, where more than 10 million people live.

Many women in Tehran support the “Weiza Zanan” idea, hoping it will be generalized in the crowded capital.

A Ministry of Interiors source told IslamOnline that 500 Tehran resident women applied for a taxi driver’s license, and received initial approval. However, the Driver’s Union, Tehran Branch, is still refusing to accept them as members.