Though the number of women in Nepal Army is far outnumbered by their male counterparts, the national army has given top priority to women representation in the upcoming peacekeeping missions as per the strategies floated by the United Nation.The UN has demanded more female peacekeepers to improve the overall approach to current peacekeeping operations in order to focus more on protection of civilian and to enhance civil-military cooperation.Although women are being recruited by the Nepal Army since 1962, there are only 3,641 women soldiers and officers in the 96,500-strong army. As of March 27 this year, 4,410 peacekeepers from Nepal Army are being deployed in different missions in different conflict-hit zones. The number of female soldiers currently deployed in different missions is only 98. Of the total women deployed in UN missions, Lieutenant Colonel Ratna Adhikari (Khatri) is commanding a top post in UN mission and Colonel Aarya Rajya Laxmi Pandey is the highest ranked Nepali woman officer in the UN mission till date, according to the NA’s Directorate of Public Relations. NA’s Spokesperson Brigadier General Tara Bahadur Karki said that the number of female representation will be increased in the upcoming missions. According to a UN report, several plans have been charted out to integrate more female peacekeepers in UN missions with the belief that skilled and trained female peacekeepers could be useful in future peacekeeping operations.
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