WOMEN IN WAR EFFORT

Southland Times, Issue 25478, 26 September 1944, Page 6

WOMEN IN WAR EFFORT

7837 SERVING WITH ARMED FORCES

The part played by women in New Zealand’s war effort deserves special note, says the annual report of the National Service Department. There are 7837 women serving in the armed forces, and a further 2798 have volunteered for the Women’s Land Service. In addition, there are some 75,000 women working in essential industries l and a further 153,000 working in other spheres of industry. Many thousands of these women are doing men’s work, keeping production and services going and holding the jobs open until the men return. Many of them are working long hours, and many are married women maintaining their homes at the same time. Women are working as van drivers, railway porters, tram conductors, postmen, farm workers, munitions workers, and in many other operations previously performed by men. Others are working on essential military or civilian production in clothing factories, boot factories, woollen mills, linen flax factories, laundries, canneries, and many other factories; yet others are engaged in nursing and in the essential services of providing, distributing, and serving foodstuffs both for members of the armed forces and for other war workers. The influence of women on the Dominion’s war effort as a whole has been greatly extended and facilitated through the close and willing co-opera-tion of the Women’s War Service Auxiliary and of various other women’s organizations such as the Women’s Institutes, the Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union, and the Royal Society for the Welfare of Women and Children.