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Sri Lanka Women in the Armed Forces
The Sri Lankan Army Women's Corps was formed in 1980 as an
unarmed, noncombatant support unit. Set up with the assistance of
the British Women's Reserve Army Corps, it was identical in
structure to its parent organization, and its first generation of
officer cadets was trained in Britain. Candidates were required
to be between eighteen and twenty years old and to have passed
the lowest level of the General Common Entrance examinations.
(Officer candidates must have passed the Advanced Level.)
Enlistment entailed a five-year service commitment (the same as
for men), and recruits were not allowed to marry during this
period. In the sixteen-week training course at the Army Training
Centre at Diyatalawa, cadets were put through a program of drill
and physical training similar to the men's program, with the
exception of weapons and battlecraft training. Women recruits
were paid according to the same scale as the men, but were
limited to service in nursing, communications, and clerical work.
In late 1987, the first class of women graduates from the
Viyanini Army Training Center were certified to serve as army
instructors.
Women were first admitted into the navy in 1985. New recruits
were given six weeks of training with the Sri Lankan Army Women's
Corps. Although they were trained in the use of weapons, they
were not assigned to combat positions or shipboard duty. Instead,
they assisted in nursing, communications, stores, and secretarial
work.
Data as of October 1988
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