Box 13.4 Are Women Allowed to Fulfil Combat Positions? Practices in OSCE Participating States246 Women are allowed to fulfil combat positions in: Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Women are not allowed to fulfil combat positions in: Azerbaijan, France, Portugal, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 246 In some states (see Box 13.4 above), women are often not granted access to combat roles. The main official reason given for excluding women from combat functions are gender differences linked to physical strength, which are believed to render female service personnel unable to attain minimum performance standards. Women are excluded from specific positions in several states, including Belarus, France, Ukraine, and the United States. In the Netherlands, women are excluded from the Marine Corps and the Submarine Fleet.247 In the United Kingdom, women serve in all specializations except those where the primary duty is “to close with and kill the enemy”. Women are therefore excluded from the Royal Marines General Service (as Royal Marine Commandos), the Household Cavalry and Royal Armoured Corps, the Infantry, and the Royal Air Force Regiment. This exclusion does not, however, prevent them from serving as part of such units in administrative and support roles. According to official Royal Navy publications, women are precluded from serving aboard submarines or as mine-clearance divers for health reasons relating to breathable air mixtures.248 The exclusion of women from combat roles has recently been a subject of discussion in the United Kingdom on the grounds that positions should be open to all on the basis of ability. Following rising criticism, the British Defence Ministry undertook a study on combat effectiveness and gender, the results of which were published in 2002. On the basis of this, the secretary of defence announced that direct combat roles in the British Armed Forces would remain closed to women on the grounds of combat effectiveness, not because women would not be fit for combat roles, but because of concerns for “the impact of gender mixing on the combat team in close combat conditions”.249 All military functions, combat roles included, are open to women In some countries, all military functions, combat roles included, are open to women, depending on their actual capabilities. Individuals cannot be rejected or employed solely on the basis of gender. This approach can be found in, for example, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. This is a relatively new approach: for example, Norway, a country with a comparatively high level of women’s integration in the armed forces, became, in 1985, the first NATO state to open all positions to women, including service on board submarines. Canadian servicewomen have also been able to serve in 246  ODIHR-DCAF questionnaire, question 73. 247  Sorin, op. cit., note 245. 248  Defence Factsheet, “Women in the Armed Forces”, available at <http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/ FactSheets/WomenInTheArmedForces.htm>. 249  “Women in the Armed Forces”, Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom, 22 May 2002, <http://www. mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/10B34976-75F9-47E0-B376-AED4B09FB3B3/0/women_af_summary.pdf>. For more information, see R. Woodward and P. Winter, “Discourses of Gender in the Contemporary British Army”, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 30, No. 2, Winter 2004, p. 289. 121 Handbook on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Armed Forces Personnel