Denmark expands military service to include women

20-year-old Katrine, right, speaks with another female servicemember during final exercises at a training area close to Royal Danish Army’s barracks in Hovelte, 25 kilometres north of Copenhagen, Denmark, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (AP Photo/James Brooks) (James Brooks/AP)

COPENHAGEN — Denmark on Tuesday expanded its military service to include women, as the Nordic country seeks to recruit more soldiers and strengthen its defenses amid heightened security concerns across Europe.

Under a law passed by Denmark’s parliament in June 2023, Denmark will require women turning 18 after July 1, 2025, to register for assessment days for potential military conscription, aligning with measures already in place for men.

Until now, women, who last year made up around 24% of all recruits, had been allowed to join the military on a voluntary basis.

“In the world situation we’re in right now, it’s necessary to have more conscripts, and I think that women should contribute to that equally, as men do,” Katrine, a recruit in the Danish Royal Life Guard, told Reuters without giving her last name.

In Denmark, volunteers are signed up first for conscription, while the remaining numbers are drawn up in a lottery system.

The armed forces are in the process of making adjustments in barracks and equipment better suited for women.

“There are different things that they need to improve, especially in terms of equipment. Right now, it’s made for men, so perhaps the rucksacks are a bit too large and the uniforms are large as well,” said Katrine.

Denmark, which together with NATO allies last week agreed to boost defence spending, plans to gradually increase the duration of the conscription period from four months to 11 months in 2026 and raise the number of recruits doing military service from around 5,000 now to 7,500 in 2033.

Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Tom Little, editing by Franklin Paul