More women in the Armed Forces
The Secretary of State for Defense announced on Friday that women represented in 2024 15.3% of the Armed Forces, a growth of more than 2.5 percentage points compared to 2022.
According to Ana Isabel Xavier, the country has 5,265 women in the Armed Forces: 3,460 military personnel (817 in the Navy, 1,424 in the Army and 1,219 in the Air Force) and 1,805 civilians. In 2022, the ruler said, Portugal had 12.73% of military women, and ended 2024 with 15.3%.
The Secretary of State for Defense released these data in the debate “Defense of Women and Peace Construction” about the role of women in defense, organized by the Portuguese representation of the European Parliament in Lisbon.
According to the Lusa agency, the ruler stressed that the female presence in the national military is higher than the average of the NATO and the European Union, a sign that Portugal is “in the front line of equality and especially the promotion of public policies” in this context.
The Secretary of State also stressed that the Military College today has “more applications of girls than boys”, and is only a mixed education entity since 2014.
Ana Isabel Xavier said that, talking about the participation of women in the military area, it aims to focus political action in defending the dissemination of women's role and public policy to promote equal opportunities.
In the same debate, Lieutenant Colonel Diana Morais, coordinator of the Ministry of Defense Equality Office, defended female participation in the Armed Forces not only as a right but also by “strategic need”.
Diana Morais said Western opponents, namely Russia, have used misinformation to create “narratives against women” and their presence in public life to attack “the values and principles of all Europeans” in equality.
« Our opponents are using our gender stereotypes against us … When we are planning operations, we military we have to realize that our opponents are using it, that terrorist groups use women as suicide bombists because they think we, military forces or security forces, we say, a woman is not a terrorist, » he added. «
