The legislator of Popular Renewal, Noelia Herrerapresented a bill that establishes compulsory military service for people from 18 years old to 51 who do not study or work. This in order to “foster patriotism, civic responsibility, discipline and commitment to national defense.”
“The purpose of the law is to strengthen national defense, ensuring that the country has a sufficient number of people trained to respond to emergency situations or conflicts. As well as, create training and personal development opportunities for young people,” it reads. in the project.
This law excludes those who have a physical or mental disability, those who are in health situations that prevent them from carrying out physical activities, students of recognized educational institutions who are pursuing higher or technical studies, people who are responsible for the care of dependents (children, elderly or people with disabilities).
The Republic consulted with the political scientist Marylia Cruzabout the viability of this bill and commented that it would be very complicated to be able to avoid this mandatory service in a country where there is as much informality as ours.
“I think the important thing here is how it is going to be put into practice and considering that we are a highly informal country; for example, to present a formal work certificate it would be very complicated to avoid military service (…) there are people who have temporary or informal jobs to help their families. It seems to me that it reduces the freedom of young people, we tend to leave school and choose a career at a very early age, there are not enough vacancies in public universities, pay for one. private university can be very expensive for a large sector of citizens,” he noted.
Likewise, he stressed that this law is part of a package of other conservative bills that are being experienced in the country.
“It would be important to define whether it is worth it for the State to invest in providing food, etc. to those who do this military service and we are not in a season of wars like in previous times where there was a concern about doing military service, We are in different times and we could rethink the way in which we want to reduce that percentage of ‘NEETs’ that corners them into an extremely vertical structure,” he emphasized.
More than 1 and a half million young people do not study or work
According to the Institute of Economics and Business Development (IEDEP) of the Lima Chamber of Commerce, there are more than 1 and a half million young people between 15 and 19 years old who are neither studying nor working, until the end of 2023. Which denotes an increase of 2.4% compared to 2022.
“The NEET segment represents 20.1% of the youth population in the country, which lacks educational programs and has limited labor participation,” Óscar Chávez, head of the CCL’s IEDEP, declared for RPP.
