Swiss considers conscripting women

Switzerland will explore making women do mandatory service in the army, considered one of the famously neutral Alpine nation’s founding pillars, the country’s first women defence minister said on Wednesday.

Overseen by a few thousand professionals, the Swiss army’s conscripts do at least four months’ service before being called up repeatedly over the next decade for three-week training sessions.

Its numbers have been significantly reduced in recent decades, falling from several hundred thousand during the Cold War to nearly 147,000 in 2024.

Among other options, Defence Minister Viola Amherd said the ministry was looking at extending obligatory service “to every person of Swiss nationality” in a report to be presented by the end of 2027.

Amherd warned that “given the current threat situation in Europe and around the world,” the army’s “insufficient staffing” was “not tolerable”.

The 62-year-old Centre Party member also said the government would consider making an orientation day about career opportunities in the military, which all men must attend, mandatory for women as well.

The announcement came as Amherd, who joined the Swiss government in 2019, said she would step down from the role.

She insisted that was to make room for “someone fresh” after her three decades in active politics, including a year-long stint as Switzerland’s rotating president.

In the days prior the populist right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP)—the country’s largest—called for her to step down, accusing her of setting the wrong priorities for the army.

“Mrs Amherd prefers focusing on questions of gender in the army, rather than on the equipment,” it wrote in a press release.

In a statement Wednesday, the party hailed her “exemplary engagement for Switzerland’s security”.

It stressed that she was the first Swiss defence minister who managed “to increase the army budget after decades of under-investment”.