The United Nations played a pioneering role in advocating for female soldiers, and it pledged to increase the percentage of women in the military from 1% in 1993 to 15% by 2028, and in police units by about 20%.
In 2019, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutters, said, “This issue is not just a matter of numbers, but about their effectiveness in carrying out the tasks assigned to them.” Read also Women and espionage .. Have women worked for the intelligence service in the history of Islam?Including auto repair .. Somali women enter vocational training Pink Gang .. 400 thousand Indians fighting for women’s rights Family and professionally … women are exemplary leaders in the Corona pandemic
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The team’s behavior has changed since Rachel Grimes joined; Her fellow soldiers acted with more restraint. At checkpoints, locals would stand longer with soldiers. Grimes confirmed that when she worked as a women’s affairs advisor for the United Nations forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; I saw women and children gathering on the outskirts of a village; They were among the rape victims who were expelled from their communities, as soldiers had always committed rape.
According to Grimes, “the last thing a Congolese woman wants to see is a man in uniform even though she looks differently at female soldiers.”
Female soldiers in the army
The magazine stated that between 1957 and 1989, only 20 women worked as soldiers in the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations, but the number of female soldiers has increased recently, with women making up a fifth of the officers in the US Army at the present time. And in 16 countries – including Britain, France and the United States – they are now allowed to take on combat roles that were once the preserve of men.
The magazine confirmed that 103 Indian women were sent to Liberia in 2007; Be the first all-female police unit. Subsequently, all female police units from Bangladesh were deployed to Haiti and the Congo.
And in modern wars, when male-dominated forces interact with women; Juveniles often take a bad turn. And in 2011, the US military conducted a study that indicated that American female soldiers “were seen as having better positions and more respectful of the sanctity of women.”
“Being a soldier means that you can deal with women and children without being seen as a threat to them,” said Captain Lizzie Mill water – the British officer advising the UN mission in Mali.
Ma’am, yes madam
Gretchen Baldwin of the International Peace Institute in New York says the pressure to hire more female peacekeepers without dealing with issues that prevent them from doing their jobs well could pose a risk to both the women and the mission; If they remain only to fill the seat, the men – who have been deployed with them – will continue to treat them as symbols, unfit to take part in the fighting.
Georgina Holmes of Kings College London found that female peacekeepers from Rwanda who were sent to Darfur later said they suffered from stress and stress because they had not received adequate training to deal with victims of sexual violence.
Combat roles
A poll – which included US forces and veterans and was conducted in January 2019 – showed that 70% of them approve of the participation of women in combat roles, while 30% reject that. According to one European officer, his male colleagues questioned the effectiveness of efforts to increase the number of women in the peacekeepers. In fact, these efforts – to effect real change – often become hostage to large-scale cultural wars.
Canada is among the countries that have performed particularly well, as the same US Army study – which focused on US forces ’mistreatment of Afghan women – indicated that Canadian forces are” respectful and treat others with more respect. ” This reflects a broader military culture in which humanitarian issues are taken seriously.
For more than a decade, the Canadian government has pursued an uncommonly named “gender analysis,” which requires an assessment of how any policy or initiative affects men and women differently. This approach has contributed to a number of changes, says Lisa Vandehi, who leads the Department of Gender Equality and Multidimensional Analysis at the Canadian Department of Defense.
Changes for women
The Canadian Navy recently redesigned its workwear to make sure it better fit women. The Air Force is also looking at how to adjust the parcel seats on training aircraft to reduce the minimum body weight required for safe use, and other aircraft are now being designed with a woman’s body measurements in mind. Vandehi notes that even chemical weapons detectors – which are designed according to the heavy men’s bodies – are under examination to see if they need to be replaced.
Changing the values of conservative male-dominated institutions – as is usually the case in the armed forces – is not easy. Christine Lund, who served as head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization and led its mission in Cyprus, indicated that as the number of female soldiers increases, more countries will have to address this kind of institutional bias based on gender.
Modern armies are no longer dependent on physical force alone, but also need forces experienced in technology and able to navigate complex battlefields. In addition, the forces need to introduce some changes in order for women to provide service on an equal basis with men.