Female soldiers and staff advised to use condoms while deployed

May 17, 2010 by Shawn Douglas
Filed under: News

Females deployed in the theater of war are now being urged to use condoms after numbers revealed a spike in pregnancy rates.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence has placed an advertisement in the Army magazine Soldier, urging women who are in the theater of war to take extra precautions when it comes to sexual relations.

The Telegraph reports that the advertisement features a row of seven open lipstick containers with the words: “Hey gorgeous! Fancy a drink? Come here often? We’re made for each other! Get your coat, you’ve pulled! Your test is positive.”

The advertisement is accompanied with the notice that while “[o]n deployment, there’ll be 50 blokes to each woman.”

The latest figures show that between January 2003 and February 2009, 121 British women deployed in Iraq and 31 women deployed in Afghanistan were returned home. Army regulations state that pregnant women are to immediately be flown home upon being declared pregnant.

Ex-Army officer and Conservative MP Patrick Mercer said: “Pregnancies are incredibly expensive for the Army. One wonders why this sort of advert has only been used now.”

Last November, we reported that British women were being sent home after falling pregnant.

“It is not an offence for a Servicewoman to be pregnant,” the MoD then said of its policy. “But there is a code of conduct and it is to do with anything that would damage operational effectiveness.”

The Daily Mail reported on Sunday that condoms are made available to all soldiers deployed to bases, including Camp Bastion. Bastion houses nearly 8,500 British personnel, over 8 percent of them women.

Meanwhile, the Sun reports a MoD spokesperson’s statement that “[t]he MoD does not encourage sexual relationships.”