All girls born in the year 2003 will receive a letter from the Ministry of Defense this week stating that they are registered for military service. It is only a registration; the compulsory attendance no longer exists.
It concerns a group of approximately 100,000 girls in the Netherlands. Girls who are seventeen years old will receive a letter from the Ministry of Defense.
Compulsory attendance in the Netherlands has been suspended since 1997. In 2017 it was announced that the then minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert wanted to amend the law, so that military conscription would also apply to girls.
The House of Representatives wanted more equal treatment of men and women. For this reason it was ultimately decided to apply conscription to girls as well.
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