Women thrive more than men in Norwegian armed forces: report

A new survey shows as much as 90 percent of the girls who were born in 1997 and now serving in Norway's armed forces are satisfied and recommend initial military service to other girls, newspaper Aftenposten reported Friday.

Norway introduced compulsory military service for women in 2015 and conscription for women applied to women born in 1997 and later.

For the first time, a new military service survey has been conducted among women who are part of the military service and not because they themselves have applied to the armed forces.

According to Norwegian Chief of Defence Admiral Haakon Bruun-Hanssen, the survey showed that the high expectations of the young people were more than fulfilled.

Seven out of ten responded that the service had satisfied or exceeded the expectations they had before starting the initial service.

In total, 84 percent said that they were satisfied with the service, among them the women thrived more: nine out of ten.

However, the survey documents revealed that the armed forces did not succeed in stopping sexual harassment or bullying of the women.

A total of 15 percent reported that they had experienced this. The share has fallen from 23 percent of the survey in 2012.

To a large extent, this concerns verbal harassment. According to the survey, two percent of men said they were experiencing the same, Aftenposten wrote.

"The Armed Forces have a zero tolerance for harassment and bullying," said Bruun-Hanssen.

"The Armed Forces still has work to do here. One measure we have recorded is that this should be a regular lesson at all commanding schools," said Anna Olivia Mohaugen from the Royal Norwegian Navy.

"We see that there are individuals who come straight from upper secondary school and who bring a culture from there. That could be an explanation," Mohaugen said. Endit