Women in Denmark are now subject to conscription, following a change to the relevant law made by the country’s parliament a few weeks ago.
The move comes as NATO, of which Denmark is a member, increases its military readiness, citing a perceived threat from Russia after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. At the bloc’s summit in The Hague last week, member states agreed to ramp up defense spending.
In May, the European Union approved a €150 billion ($171 billion) borrowing plan to support its own military buildup.
The Kremlin has consistently dismissed allegations of hostile intent toward Western nations as “nonsense” and fearmongering.
The newly adopted Danish legislation mandates “full equality between men and women in relation to military service.” It requires that “women who turn 18 on or after 1 July 2025 will have to… draw a [draft] lottery number and thus could be ordered to serve military service if there are not enough volunteers.” Female conscripts will serve under the same conditions as men.
The bill also extends the mandatory service period from four to eleven months, according to media reports.
Denmark’s armed forces rely on both volunteers and conscripts, who are called up when volunteer numbers fall short. Roughly 4,700 Danes completed military service in 2024, with women accounting for approximately 24% of that figure.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen unveiled plans to conscript women in March, framing the decision as part of a push for “full equality between the sexes.”
Latvia, another NATO member, is planning to conscript women by 2028. It reintroduced mandatory service in 2023 after scrapping it in 2006.
Norway and Sweden have already implemented gender-neutral conscription, in 2015 and 2018 respectively.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has also proposed reinstating the draft for men, which was abolished in 2011.
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