The Sunday Times - World


The Sunday Times November 26, 2006


Advance of the girl Gurkhas
Dean Nelson, Delhi



THE Gurkhas, famed for their ferocity on the battlefield, are to recruit their first women soldiers.
British diplomats in Nepal, where more than 200 soldiers are taken on each year, confirmed plans to scrap selection rules that have kept the Gurkhas an all-male bastion since 1816.



As the news leaked in Kathmandu last week, the embassy was inundated with inquiries from women and had to post signs saying the plans had yet to take effect.

The decision to bring the Gurkhas into line with the rest of Britain’s armed forces emerged in a review now awaiting ministerial approval.

“Next year we should expect that there will be girl Gurkhas,” said Colonel Jeremy Ellis, British military attaché and the commander of British Gurkhas in Nepal.

Women will be able to compete for places in the Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, the Queen’s Gurkha Signals and the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers — but not in the infantry arm, the Royal Gurkha Rifles. British women will be able to seek commissions.

“We don’t have women in infantry regiments in the British Army but girls do very well in the Nepal army,” said Ellis.

Some commentators have expressed doubts about whether women would be able to meet the rigorous standards of physical fitness required — applicants must be able to run up mountains carrying 77lb backpacks.

Ellis said that Nepali women matched men for strength. “In Nepal it’s the women who do the heavy carrying up the hills, and they’re capable of carrying whatever we need them to,” he said.




source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2471864,00.html