A Police Colonel with over 36 years of professional experience, Ms Shermatova is deservedly considered a leader in the field of planning and analysing the work of law enforcement agencies, and of operational and investigative work.
Minarkhan began her career in 1995 as an assistant to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs in Bishkek’s Lenin District. After six years, she switched to becoming an investigator in the Investigation Unit of the Department of Internal Affairs in Bishkek’s Lenin District, going on to become a senior investigator. In 2008, having decided she wanted to move up the career ladder, she applied to be transferred to the Response Service and was taken on as a criminal investigator by the 9th Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic, where she went on to become a senior criminal investigator.
In March 2010, Ms Shermatova, as an experienced employee, was invited to join the General Staff of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs, where she worked until September 2018 as a chief inspector, head of department, and, prior to her retirement, Head of Analysis, Planning and Control.
Ms Shermatova continues to work as a chief specialist there, helping its young employees, and often goes on duty trips. She is the secretary of the General Staff Veterans’ Council and takes part in all the ministry’s events.
Minarkhan has been on various work-related trips to CIS countries. For example, in May 2015, she attended a seminar in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on gender equality, and in March 2018, on the fringes of the 7th Conference on Increasing the Role of Women in the Police, in Tbilisi, she gave a presentation on measures being taken to increase the prestige of a career in the police among women.
Ms Shermatova has risen from a police sergeant to Head of Analysis, Planning and Control at the General Staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic with the rank of Police Colonel.
Despite all the challenges she has faced, Minarkhan has given her all to her work. As a woman leader, she has helped her male colleagues in difficult situations. As she herself emphasises, fortitude and professionalism do not depend on gender; after all, women leaders sometimes cope better in difficult situations and find the right ways to solve problems. Following the events of June 1990, in April 1991 Ms Shermatova joined the Special Purposes Mobile Unit of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs, where she was the only woman among 120 men. She was also the only female detective after joining the 9th Department of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2008.
Minarkhan is proud to have been born in the native village of the famous Kurmanjan Datka (Zhapalak, near Osh), the first woman in Central Asia to be awarded a military rank as a stateswoman and military figure, and to have studied at a boarding school named after Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space). When she started working, her oath of loyalty was accepted by the legendary Police Major General Ergesh Aliev and her mentors were Police Major General Murzali Abdrakhmanov and Bazarbai Nurmatov. In Bishkek’s Lenin District Department of Internal Affairs she worked on the same team as Police Colonel Kubatbek Ishenaliev, who became the first head of the Batken Region Directorate of Internal Affairs in 1999, when the region was created. From these outstanding individuals, she gained life lessons and strength of mind. But Ms Shermatova is especially grateful to her parents, who managed to bring up and educate her together with two brothers and seven sisters in a large and happy family.