Kandahar, Afghanistan ? She limps along Kandahar’s dusty streets in a beggar’s ragged burqa, peering at the produce stands like any housewife. But her all-encompassing garment hides something unique for a woman in this male-ruled society a gun.

Capt. Malali Kakar heads Kandahar’s two-member female police department a crucial, if long-neglected job in a culture that strictly separates men from women.

Gul Sika, a 15-year-old married girl, right, who is seeking help from an abusive husband, and an unidentified woman in a burqa, wait to talk with Capt. Malali Kakar, silhouetted at left, who heads Kandahar's two-person female police department in her office in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Kakar and her unarmed junior officer act as undercover cops, family counselors, arresting officers, interviewers and, sometimes, sympathetic ears for offenders and victims alike.

Male officers are not allowed to question female suspects, take statements from female victims, or even see a woman’s uncovered face. They cannot touch a woman to arrest her even if they see her committing a crime.

All those tasks must be performed by female police.

“I am the only woman in Kandahar with a gun,” said the gruff, wiry Kakar, relaxing in her office in a green uniform that reveals her head a rarity in this strict Muslim city. “No man can do my job.”

In a city of 500,000, that’s hard work.

“I have two eyes in the front of my head and two eyes in the back,” she said. “I need them all.”

An antiquated radio sits on Kakar’s desk and her burqa is piled on a chair within easy reach if she gets a call to raid a home with women present or to arrest a woman suspect.

Under the Taliban regime that fell last year amid a U.S.-led assault, women were forbidden to work or study. The Taliban, who began their rise to power in Kandahar in 1994, fired the few female police officers, including Kakar.

In January, Kakar’s department was revived to arrest female petty thieves, question female witnesses and take statements from female victims.

Kakar said she had never encountered violence on the job but was prepared.

“If somebody attacks me even a man I am ready,” she said. “I will kick his butt.”