– I have spoken out and notified internally over many years without any consequences, says Kvarving to news. news meets the lieutenant colonel in Stockholm, where she works at the Nordic Center for Gender in Military Operations. Kvarving has specialized in gender and equality in the Armed Forces and has a PhD in the field. Now she wants to come out with her support for the women who have come forward in news’s cases. – We need the Armed Forces to solve their tasks, speak truthfully and work to change a bad culture, says Kvarving to news. In a chronicle written for news Ytring, she also goes out against today’s defense leadership. She claims that “managers who contribute to the unculture” can continue up the management structure: “If the problem is to be solved, it is almost impossible if the management itself is part of it. It will be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” writes Kvarving. She is calling for a serious purge in the management. news has requested an interview with defense chief Eirik Kristoffersen, but he does not want to appear. Kristoffersen has repeatedly said that there is no unculture in the Armed Forces. – Can’t fix and play tricks with numbers and reports Kvarving has repeatedly pointed out the lack of culture and the need for changes in the Norwegian Armed Forces. In a speech she gave at Oslo Militære Samfund on Women’s Day on 8 March 2021, Kvarving said that managers had asked her to “rewrite reports, so the organization looks more positive than reality suggests”. – Have you followed requests to redact reports and figures? – No, I can’t do that. It’s not in my nature. – So you have refused? – Yes, yes. It doesn’t work. I can’t do that. I am an officer in the Royal Norwegian Air Force. After all, you can’t fix and play tricks with numbers or reports. Then we have to tell it like it is. – What happened then? – Then someone else has taken the ball. – Meaning? – Someone else has completed a report or written what they want to write, replies Kvarving. “We choose a positive angle” The lieutenant colonel tells of a general pressure that reports must not give a negative image of the Armed Forces. news has received two examples that show such pressure. The e-mails show that reports were either changed so that Kvarving did not feel comfortable with the changes, or that there should not be negative things in the documents. In an e-mail from 2011, a leader in the Ministry of Defense Lena Kvarving replies: “We choose a positive angle, highlighting what is being done rather than pointing out what should be improved”, wrote the leader in the Ministry of Defence. The response was triggered by the fact that the ministry had received feedback about errors and shortcomings in a report on measures within gender and equality. The ministry did not want to adjust the report following input that the report exaggerated how many measures had actually been carried out. The email also states that the final product “is anchored in political leadership” in the Ministry of Defence. news has asked if the Ministry of Defense wishes to comment on the e-mail. FD writes this to news: “The Ministry of Defense cannot comment on an extract from an e-mail that dates back 11 years”. Another email from 2017 shows how others in the Armed Forces had written about documents from Lena Kvarving. The document, which was about equality, was rewritten so much that she felt she had to speak out: “I have read through NN’s rewritten report and it has been edited and reduced to such an extent that it no longer appears as my product.” Got poked on the shoulder In 2019, the Norwegian Armed Forces’ first investigation into bullying and sexual harassment hit the public like a bombshell. The investigation showed that over 160 people had been raped or attempted rape in the Armed Forces during the course of a year. Lena Kvarving led the work on the investigation at the Defense Staff. Now she tells about what happened behind the scenes before the report was published. – I led the work from the Defense Staff’s side. When the first numbers came, they were so serious. I thought we have to speak up, these are serious numbers and this is happening on our watch. We have not been able to take care of our personnel. Kvarving sounded the alarm internally about the serious figures. She believed that the Armed Forces had to deal with the reasons behind it. To her, on the other hand, it seemed that the leadership of the Armed Forces was more concerned with how the figures should be communicated and presented. – It is more important to look good than to be good, notes Kvarving. news meets the lieutenant colonel in Stockholm, where she now works. Photo: Torstein Bøe / news When the preliminary figures were presented to the leadership of the Norwegian Armed Forces, Kvarving was present. But shortly before the startling figures on bullying and sexual harassment were to be presented to the rest of society, she learned that she was no longer the one who was to lead the work from the Defense Staff’s side. – I was just poked on the shoulder by a male officer with a higher degree than me, who said that he had been given the responsibility of taking over my management duties when it came to follow-up of MOST, to my great horror. news has been in contact with the man who took over the work after Lena Kvarving. He confirms that she led the work until the figures came in, and that he was asked to lead the work in handling the results and proposing measures. – Asked to take off uniform Kvarving has researched gender and gender perspectives in the military. She wrote her PhD on the handling of the UN resolution on women’s rights in war. In her doctorate, she discovered how the Armed Forces are characterized by a masculine culture that allows the ridicule of topics related to women, peace and security. The lieutenant colonel says that she has been asked to take off her uniform when she was to give a lecture about her research outside the Armed Forces. – Then I was told by the boss to take off my uniform if I was out disseminating the research – so that it would not be associated with the Armed Forces. news has been in contact with the manager who is said to have given the message. He replies that he is not aware of any such message. Kvarving says she replied that it was out of the question, and that she asked to get the order in writing. – Then they wouldn’t ask me to take off my uniform when I communicated the research anyway, but they would decide who I could communicate it to – something I myself had been free to decide up until then, says Kvarving. news has submitted the statements from Lena Kvarving about writing reports, that she was asked not to speak in uniform and that she was replaced in the work on the MOST investigation for defense chief Eirik Kristoffersen. The chief of defense does not want to be interviewed by news. To the specific statements, he has responded in a written statement via his communications department: “As a matter of principle, I cannot discuss specific relationships between an employer and an employee in public”. Settlement with the management Now she is making a public settlement with the defense management’s handling of whistle-blowing cases. Kvarving believes that overstepping must have consequences in the future and that managers must be held accountable. After news has published a number of cases about whistle-blowing and bad culture in the Armed Forces, the defense leadership has promised to clean it up. The Norwegian Defense Forces have said that they are putting various measures in place, and have asked to be seen in the maps by external investigators from the consultancy company PWC. On the website forsverget.no, the communications department has, among other things, written about how candidates for the Defense’s education courses this year were met with a clear message: Lena Kvarving believes that a campaign with such a message to young recruits should also apply to the defense leadership – if they do not soon address the problems seriously. – They tell their younger recruits who are now coming in that if you think bullying and harassment is ok, then you can take your hat and leave. I think the same must apply to the leadership of the Armed Forces. If they don’t want to take this in and make the changes that are required, then they have to take their hats and go, says Kvarving. Lieutenant-Colonel Kvarving himself has spoken out and made proposals for concrete measures a number of times. Now she believes that Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen and the others must be held accountable so that something is actually carried out. Then she has clear advice. – I have a lot of advice for the chief of defence, or for the management in general. They should start listening to the advice. The time is over for small talk. Concrete measures must now be initiated, and it must be done, it must be done properly. The Chief of Defense: Welcome to give us advice again Eirik Kristoffersen will not answer news’s specific questions, but sends a written answer via the Defense Communications Department that the Defense is happy to listen to Lena Kvarving. Chief of Defense Eirik Kristoffersen himself has said that the cases have thrown him and the Defense into a crisis. Photo: Øyvind Bye Skille / news “I am well aware of the criticism from Lena Kvarving. Based on similar criticism, she was invited to the defense leadership in 2021 to give concrete advice and propose measures. She is welcome to advise us again”. The supreme commander of the Armed Forces points out that they are now working to ensure better routines and better handling of alerts going forward. “We must ensure that unwanted actions get the right reaction. We must follow up and inform affected parties better. We will raise competence in handling alerts at all levels in the Armed Forces. PwC’s external evaluation will provide further recommendations on how we should handle alerts better.” Read more of news’s stories about the Armed Forces:
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– Asked to write about reports – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
