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Recruiting British soldiers at 16 isn’t just morally wrong. It’s bad economics

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The Ministry of Defence wastes £94 million every year training minors for army roles which could be filled more cost-effectively by adult recruits, says a new report launched today by human rights groups Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch.

Britain is the only country in the EU, the Council of Europe or among the UN Security Council Permanent Membership to recruit sixteen year olds into the military. They may not drink in a Pub, smoke, or vote in General Elections. They cannot have commercial contracts enforced against them. They may not join the Fire Service, but they can join the British Army and on their eighteenth birthday risk being killed in combat.

Recruitment at 16 is a scandal. Wars in Kosovo, Iraq and now twelve years of armed conflict in Afghanistan make the danger of being killed in battle an every day reality from the day a young recruit turns 18.

The moral case against recruitment of sixteen year olds is compelling. Eighteen is the age of legal responsibility. Those below that age are considered too young to make decisions that may lead to putting their own lives or those of others at risk. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has criticised the recruitment of minors.… Read more

Army recruitment at 16 ‘should stop’

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The “outdated” practice of recruiting 16-year-olds into the Army is wasting up to £94m a year and should stop, two human rights groups have said.

Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch claim it costs the Ministry of Defence (MoD) twice as much to train a 16-year-old as it does an adult.

That is due to longer training and a higher drop-out rate, they say.

The MoD said it did not recognise figures in the report and it “ignores the benefits” for young people.

Using figures presented to Parliament in 2011, the report said it cost an “estimated” £88,985 to recruit, train and pay new soldiers aged 16 and 17, compared with £42,818 for each adult recruit.

It said initial training for under-18s lasted either 23 or 50 weeks, depending on their chosen trade and where they were trained, whereas adult training takes 14 weeks.

The calculations included £10,000 to recruit each person, irrespective of age. The other costs covered training, accommodation, meals, welfare, health, salary and other support per Army recruit in 2010-11.

Army personnel can be deployed once they turn 18 – which the two groups said meant that “at any one time, approximately 150 soldiers are fully trained but too young to be deployed.”… Read more

Millions ‘wasted’ on junior army recruits, report claims

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Tens of millions of pounds is wasted on training young soldiers for roles that could be filled more cost effectively by adults, a report has found.

Military chiefs are spending up to £94 million on training young recruits, campaigners claimed.

Researchers found it costs the Ministry of Defence twice as much to train a 16-year-old as an 18-year-old.

The Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch joint report, added that Britain was becoming “increasingly isolated” in continuing to enlist personnel below the voting age the armed forces.

The report found it cost an estimated minimum of £88,985 to recruit and train each new soldier aged 16 to 17-and-a-half, compared with £42,818 for each adult recruit, including salary costs.

Initial training for minors lasted either 23 or 50 weeks, depending on the recruit’s trade, but enlisting adults could complete the phase one course in 14 weeks.

The drop-out rate for minors more than a third compared to fewer than three in 10 for adults.

But under-18s who complete training are likely to serve for 10 years rather than the 7.6-year average for over-18s, it added.

As a result, the report finds the taxpayer would have saved up to £94 million a year had only adults enlisted, based on recruiting for a nominal 10-year career and accounting for differing trainee drop-out rates and average career lengths.

… Read more

Army recruitment of under-18s wastes £94 million every year, claims new report

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The Ministry of Defence wastes up to £94 million every year training minors for army roles which could be filled more cost-effectively by adult recruits, according to a new report launched today by human rights groups Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch.

PRESS RELEASE

ARMY RECRUITMENT OF UNDER-18s WASTES £94 MILLION EVERY YEAR, CLAIMS NEW REPORT
Huge cost of ‘out of date’ recruitment of minors

The Ministry of Defence wastes up to £94 million every year training minors for army roles which could be filled more cost-effectively by adult recruits, according to a new report launched today by human rights groups Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch.

It costs the MoD twice as much to train a recruit at age 16 as it does at 18, says the report, due to the longer training for minors and their higher drop-out rate.  Using MoD figures, One Step Forward: The case for ending recruitment of minors by the British armed forces found that, in 2010-11:

  •     It cost an estimated minimum of £88,985 to recruit and train each new soldier aged 16-17½, compared with £42,818 for each adult recruit (includes salary costs). (1)
  •     The taxpayer would have saved an estimated £81.5 million – £94 million had only adults been recruited.
… Read more

Nuclear Weapons and Militarisation in the UK

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A society has to be militarised for a government to justify the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons to its citizens; militarisation creates a culture of acceptance. It popularises military euphemisms such as ‘Defence’, ‘Security’, and – particularly relevant to nuclear weapons – ‘deterrent’, and makes it hard to for those challenging these to be seen as credible.

Militarisation’ means the ways in which the presence and approaches of the military (typically state armed forces and Defence Ministries) are normalised in a society. Military solutions are prioritised, and the military is privileged in various ways.

A society has to be militarised for a government to justify the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons to its citizens; militarisation creates a culture of acceptance. It popularises military euphemisms such as ‘Defence’, ‘Security’, and – particularly relevant to nuclear weapons – ‘deterrent’, and makes it hard to for those challenging these to be seen as credible.

The indicators of militarisation used in the Bonn International Centre for Conversion’s Global Militarisation Index 2012 are comparisons of: military expenditure with gross domestic product (GDP) and health expenditure; the total number of (para)military forces with physicians, and the overall population; and the number of ‘available’ heavy weapons with the total ppopulation.… Read more

US military struggling to stop suicide epidemic among war veterans

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Last year, more active-duty soldiers killed themselves than died in combat. And after a decade of deployments to war zones, the Pentagon is bracing for things to get much worse

An excerpt from the article:

For William Nash, a retired Navy psychiatrist who directed the marine corps’ combat stress control programme, William Busbee’s expressions of torment are all too familiar. He has worked with hundreds of service members who have been grappling with suicidal thoughts, not least when he was posted to Fallujah in Iraq during the height of the fighting in 2004.

He and colleagues in military psychiatry have developed the concept of “moral injury” to help understand the current wave of self-harm. He defines that as “damage to your deeply held beliefs about right and wrong. It might be caused by something that you do or fail to do, or by something that is done to you – but either way it breaks that sense of moral certainty.”

Contrary to widely held assumptions, it is not the fear and the terror that service members endure in the battlefield that inflicts most psychological damage, Nash has concluded, but feelings of shame and guilt related to the moral injuries they suffer.… Read more

Fifty troops commit suicide after Iraq and Afghanistan tours

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More than 50 members of the UK Armed Forces have committed suicide since serving in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, figures suggest.

In an indication of the toll the conflicts may have taken on the mental health of servicemen and women, the data reveals that eight took their own lives during a deployment itself, while the other 42 killed themselves at some point afterwards.

More than half of those who took their lives later – 23 of the 42 – committed suicide on Ministry of Defence (MoD) property, mainly in the UK.

The figures, released to the Daily Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation, show that six British forces members killed themselves while serving in Iraq and two did so while serving in Afghanistan.

The Mental Health Foundation said young veterans were twice as likely to take their own life as their peers, and argued more help could be provided to them.

Simon Lawton-Smith, head of policy, said: “Combat puts great pressures on our fighting forces and this can have significant psychological impact both at the time and in the days, months and years following.

… Read more

Charities pairing ex-military staff with disadvantaged pupils get £1.9m

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Extra education cash for charities is part of Michael Gove’s ambition to boost military ethos in schoolchildren.

Michael Gove’s desire for a greater military ethos in schools has taken another step forward with the announcement of extra cash for charities which are using ex-service personnel to work with excluded or disadvantaged pupils.

The Department for Education (DfE) said it had committed £1.9m to four projects around England which put former military trainers into alternative provision teaching units, used primarily for pupils who had been excluded from ordinary schools but also those, for example, with particular medical needs.

The former service personnel would provide mentoring and confidence-building, and organise team-building tasks and, in some instances, outdoor obstacle courses to “engage and motivate hard-to-reach pupils”.

Since becoming education secretary, Gove has expanded the provision for school cadet forces and developed a Troops to Teachers programme, with £9,000 bursaries for ex-military staff seeking a career in the classroom.

Of the latest project, he said: “Every child can benefit from the values of a military ethos. Self-discipline and teamwork are at the heart of what makes our armed forces the best in the world – and are exactly what all young people need to succeed.”

… Read more

When soldiering gets sexy: the militarization of gender equality and sexual difference

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How does militarism change social and cultural expectations of gender roles and relations? This is a huge question. This article by Vron Ware considers three areas.

Regardless of what they say about a man in uniform, it’s clear that some of them have a particular appeal when they’re half naked and preferably holding a gun.

The UK charity Go Commando which raises money for Royal Marines and their families, has recently launched its third successive calendar featuring marines in various stages of undress. The calendar went through official channels before being launched with acclaim in the national media. Its first print-run sold out within days.

In this now familiar genre, the black and white portraits of the calendar boys reveal them to be as muscly and virile as their female counterparts – who now include military wives – have tended to be demure and coquettish. Whether their nakedness is concealed by rifles, rugby balls, boxing shorts or the bottom halves of their uniforms, the marines’ rippling chests and arms suggest that the male military body represents new standards of idealised masculinity.

The appeal of the original calendar girls was that they were older women with real (that is to say, ageing, not thin and non-airbrushed) female bodies, consciously parodying the pin-up.… Read more

Bullying ‘seen as acceptable in Army’ as survey reveals every woman questioned was victim of unwanted attention

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Bullying is perceived as “acceptable” among some in the Army, according to an internal report that found every single woman questioned said they had been the victim of unwanted sexual attention.

It also revealed that many soldiers who believed that they were treated unfairly did not want to complain because they did not trust the chain of command.

Details of the report emerged in a memo from Major General John Lorimer to the Army’s Adjutant General, Lieutenant General Gerry Berragan, which was leaked to Channel 4 News.

Maj General Lorimer, who commands nearly 25,000 personnel in 3 Division, reported the findings of his survey of 6,000 of them, including 400 women.

His memo reported that every woman spoken to “claims to have been the subject of unwanted sexual attention”.

“This is an unacceptable situation and one you might consider to be a future area of pan-Army focus,” he wrote.

… Read more