China army lets families into camps to halt divorces
BEIJING: In a bid to address growing divorce rate among the world’s largest military due to long-separation from families, China’s PLA has allowed — for the first time — non-commissioned officers (NCOs) to invite their families to stay in the military camps during Lunar New Year.
Previously, only officers and their families were permitted to stay in the camps.
“The happiness (of family reunions) has come a little bit suddenly,” Wang Xingtao, a senior NCO in the 12th Army Group, based in Xuzhou in Jiangsu province, told the PLA Daily, the official organ of the world’s largest 2.3 million-strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Wang and his wife were among 34 couples in his brigade to enjoy the unprecedented “family reunion happiness” pilot programme this Lunar New Year holi- day, it said.
The move is among the first steps in NCO conscription reforms to offer more benefits to help keep military talents in the army.
The steps have come amid President Xi Jinping’s call for military leaders to come up with innovative measures to boost the army’s morale by solving housing problems affecting grassroots soldiers such as NCOs.
“The pilot family reunion programme might seem nothing for military officials who are entitled to have their dependents with them, but it is a real privilege to us,” Benjamin Sun, an NCO in the PLA’s Qingdao garrison, told Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
Sun said the rate of divorce among military officers was higher than those of their peers outside the garrisons because of the long periods of separation.