Response to interpellation 2024/25:335 on the Armed Forces' management of mental health among conscripts
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M considers it of utmost importance that conscripts with mental ill-health receive support 1. M believes that the Armed Forces take mental ill-health seriously, work with preventive measures, and are responsible for a satisfactory working environment 1. M considers that stress and pressure during the training is an expression of the demands of war 2. M believes that the Armed Forces and the Swedish Defence Readyness Administration perform important work with the muster procedure 2. S considers it an enormous failure when a conscript commits suicide 3. S believes it is alarming that many conscripts experience anxiety or depression 4. S considers it necessary to combat unhealthy cultures 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! Adrian Magnusson has asked me if I have had a dialogue with the Armed Forces regarding the management of mental illness among conscripts and if I intend to take any measures to ensure that the Armed Forces better handle cases of mental illness among conscripts in the future.
I share Adrian Magnusson's assertion that it is of utmost importance that conscripts with mental illness receive the support they need. I have been in contact with ÖB on the matter. The Armed Forces have conducted an internal review and are working continuously to create good conditions for the conscripts' situation during basic training. The Ministry of Defence and I have an ongoing dialogue with the agency. The well-being of the conscripts is important. This is underscored by the deeply tragic events that Adrian Magnusson also refers to.
The Armed Forces has, according to the Work Environment Act, a responsibility to ensure that the work environment is satisfactory and that working conditions are adapted to people's different circumstances in physical and psychological respects. The agency has routines in place for its work environment efforts and its rehabilitation responsibility. I expect that these are kept updated and that conclusions from serious incidents involving conscripts are taken into account to improve the conditions for handling similar incidents in the future.
My view is that the Armed Forces take mental health seriously and work actively with preventive measures. This occurs, for example, through the health and medical care work at Försvarshälsan. There are also conscription consultants who contribute to the psychosocial work during the conscripts' basic training. The Armed Forces' large growth and increasing conscription cohorts make it even more urgent to continuously develop that activity. It is also relevant in times of anxiety and a deteriorating global situation.
The national and long-term Swedish strategy for mental health and suicide prevention, which the government decided on a month ago, will contribute to the conditions for that work.
I closely follow the Armed Forces' work with preventive measures against mental ill-health.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to the Minister for Defence for the answer to the interpellation!
I welcome the announcement given here in the chamber that the Minister for Defence has had direct contact with the Supreme Commander regarding the issue of the mental health of conscripts and the issue of whether conscripts receive the support they need.
The incident that I raised in the interpellation, and which the Minister for Defence also touches upon in his answer, shows how incredibly tragic it can end if the Armed Forces are considered to be failing in that responsibility.
Madam Speaker! What lies behind the interpellation is a segment in P1 Dokumentär that raises a number of questions. First and foremost, it evoked in me, in any case, both anger and sorrow. There are few documentaries that have touched me as much as this one and that have made me as sad and angry.
Here we have a young girl who very much wanted to do her military service and who developed mental health issues during her military service. It went so far that she chose to end her life. I think it is appalling. It is an enormous failure not only for the Armed Forces but fundamentally for our entire society.
I perceive that there is a very broad consensus in the chamber behind the idea of a people's defense that is expressed through conscription. In the event of war, the country shall be defended by ordinary people from all corners of the country with different backgrounds, different genders, and different experiences.
It is a thought that I and the Social Democrats wholeheartedly stand behind. I perceive that there is no political support for the idea of a professional defense where a small, highly trained elite shall constitute the country's defense. That idea is, hopefully, a parenthesis in the country's history.
Madam Speaker! If we are to have a total defense, the Armed Forces need to work hard on solving the task that there are people with different backgrounds, prerequisites, and characteristics among those performing national service. We know what a public health problem it is today with mental illness.
We know that many young people, both girls and boys, develop performance anxiety. We also know how difficult it can be for a young person who finds themselves in the darkness that mental ill-health often constitutes to get out of it on their own and seek care themselves. The person who is feeling extremely poorly often lacks the ability to be the one who takes contact with the healthcare system themselves.
I assume that the Minister of Defence himself has listened to the documentary in question, so we do not need to go through it in detail. But given that the Armed Forces must, after all, keep in mind that the principle of a people's defense applies, the documentary raises questions, and one becomes a bit distressed when listening to it. I really hope that it is just clumsily expressed, and I have no reason to assume otherwise. But when officers say things in the documentary such as the individual themselves has a great responsibility to seek care, I am, in any case, worried about what kind of mentality prevails in certain parts.
In this case, we are talking about a conscript who had lost almost 20 kilos in weight during the conscription. It cannot be considered reasonable that a person who is obviously feeling so poorly should have to seek care themselves. I believe that managers at other workplaces who had expressed themselves in that way about employees would have received quite sharp criticism from trade unions and other employees.
There are also other things in the documentary that invite some reflection and are somewhat worrying. This concerns, for example, the fact that the healthcare contact that the conscript is given by the Armed Forces is a conscription consultant. I do not doubt that conscription consultants do everything they can, but in cases of severe mental ill-health, there may be reason to question this system. The conscript should perhaps instead be referred directly to Försvarshälsan.
The documentary raises many questions. That is what documentaries are supposed to do, so that is good. I am positive about the information that the Minister for Defence has provided here today, and I hope that the dialogue continues and that the Minister for Defence continues to work on the issue in close dialogue with the Armed Forces.
If we are to be able to maintain a people's defense, we must work more on these types of issues so that all people in this country feel that they can contribute. Then we cannot have any other order.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Adrian Magnusson, for the interpellation!
What has happened is terribly tragic. I use the same expression as Adrian Magnusson, and I have also chosen to comment on this in the media. I never enter into individual cases, but some cases have such great principled power that I think there are reasons to comment on this. I also use the term failure; it is a failure when a young person who is subject to conscription commits suicide. It is important, and I want to clarify this.
In this case, Adrian Magnusson knows that it is the Armed Forces that have the employer responsibility, and they must, of course, account for the events and for what has occurred. After having followed up on this issue, and also on a general level, I know that the helicopter flotilla has conducted an investigation into what has happened. Measures have also been taken to strengthen issues linked to the leadership and management role at the helicopter flotilla, and this I welcome.
I also chose to raise the issue with ÖB on a principled level. Is this a symptom of the fact that there are problems with mental health in the Armed Forces? There are such problems in the Armed Forces just as in large parts of the rest of society. But I also experience that the Armed Forces, in general, take a great responsibility and view issues linked to mental health with the utmost seriousness. I will return to this.
Adrian Magnusson also takes note of the other aspect of the growth phase we are currently in regarding the Armed Forces. We have doubled the conscription over a few years, and it is more young girls and boys who will be affected by the conscription instrument. In that case, it is naturally extra important that one works with issues such as mental health and that preventive measures are taken. Just this year, the number of conscripts will increase to approximately 8,500, and we are on our way up to 12,000 at some point between 2032 and 2035. This is therefore important.
We also know that the law on total defense obligation stipulates that the person who is most suitable should be drafted and that that person must be able to handle the demands of war. It can be a quite tough transition for many who live in civilian life, and therefore it is naturally extra important that the Armed Forces work on offering support to persons who undergo the conscription.
Then conscription consultants who work to be available out in the units and support the conscripts can be an instrument. Defense health also has a very important role. We monitor Defense health continuously so that it grows in the same proportion as other parts of the Armed Forces and manages to handle the growing conscription cohorts. I have also held a dialogue with Pliktrådet, which does an important and good job, regarding this.
There are slightly different perceptions between the Pliktrådet, which points out that in some deployment locations there is not sufficiently good access to Försvarshälsan, and the Försvarsmakten, which argues that it exists but not necessarily in the same places as the units.
I would however like to emphasize that Försvarshälsan has an important role in this work. Just as Adrian Magnusson knows, it is the work environment act that governs. The conscripts shall have a good work environment that promotes health and reduces risks for incidents, accidents, and ill health.
It is important issues that Adrian Magnusson points out, but on the whole, I dare to assert that the Armed Forces is doing a good job and takes the issues seriously. Then there is always room for improvement, and that is also pointed out by the Pliktrådet's interim report, which arrived in the autumn.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! I appreciate that the Minister for Defence takes the issue seriously - not because I thought otherwise - and for a dialogue with the Supreme Commander, which he accounts for here. He has thus ensured that measures have been taken at the helicopter flotilla in Linköping related to leadership issues and so on.
When one listens to the documentary, one gets the impression that these issues perhaps have not always been prioritized. But it is of course difficult to comment on how individual persons think in individual cases.
Mental health among young people is a societal problem - almost like some kind of epidemic, one could say. When I examined the general trends within the Armed Forces ahead of this interpellation debate, I discovered that 65 percent of the conscripts report that they, during the time in their conscription, experienced anxiety, depression, or stress for the first time. This is shown by surveys that were released last year.
This is a worrying development, and one can always make long arguments about why we have it. I do not believe that the Armed Forces bear the blame for this, but it is a societal problem. However, when this type of problem exists in society, the Armed Forces need to ensure that they are equipped to handle the problems within their organization.
I am convinced that the Armed Forces have met many more conscripts than I have, but when I meet young people who are going to do or are currently doing their military service, I experience that they feel a great pride in doing the military service and that they want to do well. I have met many high school students, including here in the Riksdag, who have talked about that they are going to do the military service and that they are very proud of it. It will most likely arise a comprehensive performance anxiety in many if they experience that they are falling behind, as it was for the person in this specific case.
In the society we live in today, which can be quite individualized, it is perhaps precisely during military service that one encounters for the first time the idea that the collective's strength comes first. It is about the reasoning that, perhaps a bit too pointedly, can be expressed as that a chain is never stronger than its weakest link. If one has had an anxiety problem previously or develops one during their military service, it is very important that the Armed Forces is equipped to meet this type of mental ill-health.
It must simply be taken with the utmost seriousness, and I have no reason to believe that the Armed Forces do not do so on a general level. But there are surely individuals in the Armed Forces, just as in so many other places in society, who do not take the issues as seriously.
In the documentary, it is presented as – and this is a larger issue that does not only involve officers – that there are also some harmful cultures that must be combated. This becomes almost anecdotal evidence, and it is difficult to speak about how widespread this is. But there are, for example, cultures that mean that one does not seek care and that one must get permission to seek care. There is a system where one is supposed to determine how much pain one is in on a scale from one to death, and if one does not have pain corresponding to death, one is not allowed to seek care.
This is also something that one must work on. Just as the Minister for Defence says, the conscription grows rapidly in a short period of time, and there is great reason to take these issues seriously.
Another part of why the military service is growing rapidly is that young people are given responsibility to look after their comrades. It appears in the documentary that conscripts have been given missions to look after other conscripts when they experience poor mental health. So perhaps it can be done, but it is a great responsibility to place on a young person who might be in the same risk situation. It is also such a thing that needs to be reviewed.
I appreciate that the Minister for Defence takes the questions seriously - I did not expect anything else either, as I said - and I look forward to following the work.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! That young people experience stress and pressure during the conscription training, I believe to some extent will be a constant and an expression of the fact that it is the armed attack that is dimensioning. It must be the requirements of war that shape the training, so it will be tough and demanding. This is, of course, done primarily in act and purpose to prepare the soldiers for the armed attack, so that element will probably always be there.
However, we must ensure that we get the right person in the right place. Both the Swedish Defence Readyness Authority (Plikt- och prövningsverket) and the Armed Forces perform a very important task through the recruitment process. There are over 100 different positions that one can be selected for when undergoing basic training, and it is naturally important that the Armed Forces work continuously with the Swedish Defence Readyness Authority so that the requirement specification is correct. In this way, one gets conscripts with the right physical and mental ability to handle the position training, and it also provides good conditions for carrying out the military service.
There are still some elements of statistics that I think are important to take away and which also provide hope. The Swedish model has both conscription and basic training. We do not have a professional defense force, as Adrian Magnusson points out, but we have the possibility of continuously employed soldiers for a limited period. This is a good mix, because there are available soldiers who can act before high alert and mobilization for readiness adjustments and training, while we also have conscription training. This generates great interest.
What is also important connected to this, with the right person in the right education, is that over three-quarters of those who complete the basic training recommend that other young people perform the conscription. These are very good ambassadors among other young people to awaken interest. There is also work with school informants, that is to say, people who have just completed the basic training and thereafter go out to schools and provide information about the conscription so that young people get a deeper understanding of what it entails to perform the conscription.
More than three-quarters, therefore, recommend that other people do the conscription if they have the opportunity to do so. The second dimension is that we have very low attrition rates. It is better now than when we had voluntary recruitment. Then the attrition rates were somewhere between 12 and 15 percent; now they are down to 7 percent. That is low and indicates that we are relatively good at getting the right person in the right place in the Armed Forces.
In addition to these two parts, over one-third of all who complete the basic training choose to remain in the Armed Forces in another form directly after the training - it can be as an employed soldier, sailor, specialist officer or officer.
On the whole, I think that we have a pretty good personnel supply system. Then we will need to continue working on adapting the fact that the obligation instrument will affect more people and that we are now going to need to grow. Then we need to have an infrastructure in place in the form of buildings and so on, and we also need to have good conditions for the young people when it comes to personal equipment.
In the same way as in other organizations that are growing very rapidly, there is naturally growing pains in the Armed Forces.
Adrian Magnusson (S)
Madam Speaker! Just as the Minister for Defence is in, there are several dimensions to this. There are the overarching regulatory frameworks – the Work Environment Act and such that one needs to ensure are followed – and then there are, of course, different types of leadership issues within the Armed Forces. It is also about combating unhealthy cultures that probably exist in all workplaces. In some cases, one may perhaps need to be so clear that one trains individual individuals in what it means to take care of young people. It is clear that the transition that the Armed Forces is making is also a transition for the professional employees.
My perception is therefore that if it is required to send generals, colonels, majors and captains on courses in order to be able to detect and manage mental ill-health within the Armed Forces, then it is absolutely necessary to do so, even though it is, of course, a matter for the Armed Forces to decide in the end.
There are two reasons why I submitted this interpellation. I was very deeply affected, angry, and saddened by the documentary. I am sure that the Minister for Defence was as well; he has said so himself in the media, and I expect nothing else.
I also believe that it is fundamentally a threat to the concept of the people's defense if people experience that the defense cannot take care of those who are subject to conscription or otherwise act and work within the defense. I believe it would be very bad both for the country Sweden and for the Armed Forces if the idea that our country should be defended by, loosely expressed, the common man is not considered to be upheld. I believe that would be harmful on several levels. Given the development we see in society regarding mental health, I therefore believe that the Armed Forces need to take their responsibility when such mental health issues arise.
I appreciate the Defense Minister's answer here today. I think he is usually reasonable, so even today, and I look forward to following this work further.
Försvarsministern Pål Jonson (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Adrian Magnusson, for an important interpellation!
We need to work continuously with the issues concerning the conditions for conscripts. There must also be zero tolerance, for example, against unwelcome behavior, which I know Adrian Magnusson is looking into. There is work left to do with this.
It is also important that the conscripts are aware of their rights, which the Pliktrådet performs important work with. I know that they conduct over 30 inspection visits per term and inform the conscripts about their rights. The officers must also, of course, ensure that the conscripts are aware of their rights, obligations, and the conditions regarding receiving help and support.
I also want to highlight the Soldathemsförbundets fine and important work in this context. There are, I believe, 24 soldathem around the country that offer important recreation and a certain form of psychosocial support. It is something that I think is important and urgent and that I want to highlight in this context.
The broader question, which Adrian Magnusson is naturally correct about, concerns the increased mental ill-health in society in general and, above all, among young people. There are reasons to do more there. I do not intend to develop this into any kind of general political debate, but the government has taken a number of measures in that area as well. It is, of course, the great challenge that can also, to some extent, affect the growth of the Armed Forces, and this also applies to security and defense aspects moving forward. There may therefore be reasons to return to the question of mental ill-health among young people and the work that the Armed Forces does linked to the conscription.
Thank you for the interpellation debate!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.