Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken to increase the availability and use of gender advisers and cultural advisers within deployable United Kingdom armed forces; and whether they will list those instances where such advisers have been deployed.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is currently examining the number, training and requirement of military gender advisors.

Over the past 12 months, the MOD has deployed gender advisors to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq (in order to train the Kurdish Security Forces (KSF); approximately 700 KSF have been trained so far). The MOD will also be deploying one gender advisor to the United Nations Headquarters to support the United Nations' military advisor to the Secretary-General on gender issues.

The MOD's cultural advisors have undertaken over 60 deployments over the past 12 months, to locations such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ghana, Angola, Mozambique and Bosnia.