UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, amid serious recruitment problems, particularly in the country’s navy, said he was concerned that the composition of the armed forces did not reflect the composition of society as a whole. He believes more needs to be done to attract and retain women in the British armed forces, the newspaper reported. The Daily Telegraph.
Journalists asked Shapps what he, as head of the Ministry of Defense, would personally do to resolve the worsening recruitment crisis.
“I would love for us to have an army that represents our country as it is today. For example, it is not right that our armed forces are still only 11 or 12 per cent women when they make up half the population of the UK.”replied the head of the British military department.
Today, the proportion of women in the UK regular army is 11.3 percent, while the Royal Navy has 13 percent women and the Royal Marines 1.8 percent. In the Royal Air Force, about 16 percent are women, and in the Army it is 10.3 percent.
At the same time, the newspaper pointed out that there is an “epidemic” of rape culture against women in the British army. A number of scandals forced the country’s Ministry of Defense to pay attention to problems related to the attitude towards women in the army.
Thus, in 2022, the Royal Navy launched an investigation into allegations of rape threats and sexual harassment on British nuclear submarines. Two Red Arrows pilots were subsequently fired after evidence emerged later that year.
The Telegraph previously wrote that due to a shortage of sailors, the Navy had to decommission two warships to staff the new class of frigates. The material noted that recruitment into the Navy and Royal Marines was down 22.1 percent compared to the previous year.
