A panel appointed by the Pentagon to look into how to improve relations between the sexes in America's armed forces has concluded that they should be segregated in training. The panel was established in the wake of repeated reports of sexual abuse, largely between male training instructors and female recruits. Here's our Washington correspondent, Tom Carver:

The panel was asked to look at mixed-sex training to ensure that female recruits were being treated with equality and dignity. The conclusion it came to was that increasing integration between the sexes was actually doing more harm than good.

The present system in the army, navy and air force, the panel concluded, is resulting in less discipline, less unit cohesion and more distraction from the training. The panel recommended instead that recruits should live in totally separate barracks and that even the basic military units such as the platoon should be segregated.

This is contrary to the received wisdom of the last two decades, which says that the only way to achieve sexual equality in the armed forces is to integrate as much as possible. The head of the panel, former Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, stressed that this should not be seen as a step backwards, but she said that female recruits tended to be more confident and had better esprit de corps in all-female units.