US military urged to separate the sexes

A team of American government advisers says men and women serving in the armed forces should be segregated in training.

The panel of experts headed by senator Nancy Kassebaum-Bakerconcluded that closer integration between the sexes was doing more harm than good; it led to worse discipline, poorer team spirit and a decline in effectiveness.

A BBC correspondent in Washington says the panel's findings run contrary to the wisdom of the last two decades, which said the only way to achieve sexual equality in the armed forces was to integrate as much as posible.

The panel's findings follow a six-month investigation prompted by disclosures that drill sergeants at an army training centre had been abusing their authority by coercing female recruits into sex.The American Defence Secretary William Cohen has given the armed forces ninety days to respond to the study.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service