Jakarta –
The German government and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will this week implement a series of new provisions to open up more opportunities for women to enter the military and equal opportunities for men and women to serve in the German undeswehr military.
The changes also aim to align procedures in the Bundeswehr, with the recent strengthening of equal opportunity laws that apply to the government as a whole. The Bundeswehr needs more men to fill its ranks, as part of Germany’s efforts to increase its military capabilities.
“Women are still under-represented in the Bundeswehr,” Steffen Hebestreit, the government spokesman, told reporters last week. The initial target was to increase women’s participation beyond 20%. Defense officials want women to make up at least half of the medical corps. Currently, according to government data, only about 9.5 percent of the Bundeswehr members are women, 45 percent in the medical corps.
The Bundeswehr has a total of around 180,000 soldiers, almost 24,000 of them women. Indeed, the involvement of women has increased since the end of the Cold War. Now more women are involved, says Steffen Hebestreit, in keeping with the UN’s “Empowerment of women and girls” agenda.
Increase female recruitment
The new policy, among other things, focuses on salary, both while on active duty and in reserve. The Bundeswehr is also working to increase support for childcare and care for elderly and sick family members.
If better pay and services can relieve women of this type of unpaid domestic work, the German government hopes the new policy will create both opportunities and incentives to join the military.
When the West German military was founded in 1955, women were prohibited from serving. That began to change in 1975 – when women were allowed to join, but only limited to the medical corps. Then all positions started to open up to women, but most of them stayed in the medical corps.
The situation in the East German Socialist State was different. The socialist character makes the state tend to provide equal opportunities for men and women. The East German armed forces were established in 1956 and allow full participation. But mostly women fill medical and administrative duties.
The military is still a ‘man’s world’ – just not in Germany
In most countries, the military is indeed “still a man’s world”, as stated in a 2021 British Parliament report. At the time, 11% of Britain’s regular army was made up of women. That’s the highest figure on record by the defense ministry, but still below its 15% recruitment target. Even for 2030, the British military wants to increase the female quota to 30%. In the United States, more than 17% of active duty personnel will be women by 2021, according to the US department of defense.
The German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, has announced a target of adding around 20,000 troops by 2031. That will be a challenge. Because when it comes to recruitment, the Bundeswehr has to compete with other government agencies and the private sector for potential applicants.
Another challenge that the military has compared to the private sector: safety at work, especially for women. Sexual harassment is common in the military, says rights organization Terre des Hommes. Between 2018-2020, there were nearly 850 cases of sexual harassment in the Bundeswehr.
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2023-08-01 02:22:35
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