The Royal Navy is to place advertisements for recruits in the Pink Paper as part of a new campaign to recruit homosexual sailors. The move follows its decision to sign up to the Diversity Champions programme run by the equal rights charity Stonewall, the first time a branch of the armed forces has done so.
Commander Tim Kingsbury, the Royal Navy's diversity and equality policy officer, said the scheme would initially involve providing commanding naval officers with the necessary information to best understand and support homosexual staff. He said Navy top brass still "needed to understand better the needs of one group of personnel and to encourage them that they are part of the mainstream. Commanding officers have a key role to play in creating a culture in which gay and lesbian personnel feel confident that they work without being harassed or bullied because of their orientation," Commander Kingsbury said.
The move, which follows the change in 2000 to legally permit the recruitment of homosexual sailors, will see seminars, pamphlets and specific advice offered to servicemen, said Ben Summerskill, the chief excecutive of Stonewall. The charity will advise on promoting role models, collecting data on sexual orientation and implementing homosexual-friendly relocation allowances, travel benefits and bereavement leave.
There are an estimated 2,100 homosexual personnel in the Navy and it is hoped the programme will encourage more to "come out". "I think the Navy have been very courageous to engage with this so publicly," Mr Summerskill said. "We hope that the RAF and the army will be following shortly." He said forces staff had become so sophisticated and highly trained that they could no longer afford to lose them as a result of prejudice.
This certainly is not Admiral Lord Nelson's Royal Navy.
(tipped off by Neale News)
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