“We will not be discriminatory. We are planning on including women if they want to, but they will be given non-combat duties. That will be maintained after the legislation has passed through sub-legislative acts,” Deputy Minister of Defense Gabriel Balayan said during a meeting with journalists at the Ministry of Defense. He was speaking about the potential inclusion of women in the new volunteer military.
The Ministry of Defense set forth a draft of a law that would establish a volunteer military, which stems from the need for the defense of Armenia to be of a general and national nature and the need to introduce a voluntary military system based on citizens’ volunteering in order to repel any potential ceasefire violations by the enemy.
“This is in reference to women who are not registered in the reserve. However, there are women registered in the reserve who have served in the military. In other words, we have non-commissioned officers and sergeants. We are planning exercises for those who have no experience. If a woman is a nurse and she wishes to serve in the volunteer military with her skills, we will consider that based on her health condition,” Gabriel Balayan said.
The deputy minister also spoke about the fact that women have been accepted into the best military universities and have studied there. “We already have platoon commanders who are senior lieutenants or even captains. I cannot say that everything has gone smoothly. We have many well-established female officers who have gone through some problems, but I cannot think of any cases of demobilization. Even more, in some cases where the platoon commander is a woman, the platoon is more disciplined. The presence of a woman often causes 18-year-olds to be more restrained.”
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Luiza Sukiasyan
