Women should not be enlisted into National Service as a signal of “gender equality”, said the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Ng Eng Hen in Parliament today. The Minister was responding to several questions by PAP MPs Poh Li San and Carrie Tan.
National Service already “comes with significant costs on enlistees and the society” as it is, said the Minister for Defence. For instance, enlistees are taken out of the workforce for two years, there are the added risks of training injuries and deaths, as well as the firm punishments that are meted out to those who default or desert.
The Minister also said:
“I think there are distinct pitfalls if conscription is implemented for any other reason than the critical need of military defence — whether it is for men, or women.”
The Minister therefore said that expanding national service to include women “can only be justified if it serves the critical need of national security and defence.” Currently, the SAF and the Home Team can maintain their strength and capabilities, so at present there is “no need for us to enlist women for National Service.”
History of discussions on including women in NS
There is a long history of discussions concerning whether or not women should be enlisted into National Service. The Minister for Defence explained that when Dr Goh Keng Swee was tasked with strengthening Singapore’s military capabilities, his “first preference was actually not National Service conscription, but an army formed by regulars, men and women.” This was because Dr Goh and his colleagues,
did not want to deal with the potential problems of National Service: turning civilians into soldiers, equity, defaulters, deserters, training injuries and even deaths, among them. But a regular army would not have been sufficient to protect Singapore.
And so, out of necessity, a conscription National Service was established. Initially, as Minister Ng explained, Lee Kuan Yew had wanted Dr Goh to also enlist women. Minister Ng quoted from Lee’s autobiography:
I was keen to have our women do national service as Israeli women did, because that would reinforce the people’s will to defend themselves. But Keng Swee did not want his new ministry to carry this extra burden. As the other ministers in Defco were also not anxious to draft our women, I did not press my point” (p. 19, From Third World to First).
Recent Proposals
Exactly a year ago this month, the Executive Director of the Association of Women’s Action and Research, said in an Institute of Policy Studies lecture that women should be enlisted into National Service. “The equal participation of women in national service will automatically make national service less masculine”, she said.
Lim’s comments led to some criticism:
But as the journalist Kirsten Han has noted, this is not a new argument by AWARE — it is something that AWARE has been advocating for many years.
There will be no changes with regard to women in NS
Despite the calls by Corinna Lim and AWARE, the government has no intention to enlist women going forward. As Minister Ng shared, this holds true for a national service for women even for non-military roles:
Even if women are enlisted for non-military National Service roles to augment our healthcare and social services, it may make manpower shortages in other industries worse. Over the long term, it will impose a great cost not only on women themselves, but also on their families, children and spouses and society as a whole. Is that cost justified to send a signal or to reverse stereotypes? From the Government’s perspective, no. I think most Singaporeans would say no too, from a security perspective.
WATCH: The societal costs of enlisting women into National Service would outweigh the benefits, said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen. He also said that should women go through mandatory enlistment, it may make manpower shortages in other industries worse. https://t.co/V4fWM8Q8E8 pic.twitter.com/Mgap2fs6RC
— TODAY (@TODAYonline) May 9, 2022
Towards the end of the debate, Progress Singapore Party Non-constituency MP Leong Mun Wai got up and asked the Minister for Defence if MinDef would be reviewing the “sharing of the burden on the defence of the country.” Mr Leong noted “the fact that we have a rising population, but we continue to have a declining number of male enlistees. So is there a review being done as to how we can ensure that the sharing of the burden of the defence of this country is being done properly?” The Minister responded by saying
I’ve gone to great lengths in describing that the SAF even from its inception had made use of technology and optimising resources so that we can build a credible and strong SAF, even despite the declining enlistees. So the assertion by Mr Leong goes completely against what I’ve said in the last fifteen minutes. And he either does not believe me and thinks that the SAF is not credible and therefore the rest of his questions are not germane.
As the Minister stressed, based off of the fact that the SAF does not need further reinforcements of manpower for its military capabilities, there is no reason for further review as to who should and should not be enlisted into National Service — be it women or anyone else for that matter.
For the foreseeable future, National Service will remain a largely male domain, though women are free to enlist on their own volition.
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