A fe­male sol­dier, whose se­nior­i­ty was not recog­nised af­ter she could not com­plete a fit­ness test due to med­ical com­pli­ca­tions fol­low­ing a cae­sare­an sec­tion, has been award­ed over $120,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

High Court Judge West­min James or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Sergeant Pa­tri­an Phillip-Roberts as he up­held her con­sti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion case against the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the T&T Reg­i­ment (TTR), ear­li­er this month.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice James not­ed that it high­light­ed long-stand­ing sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion against women in the lo­cal mil­i­tary, which may not have been eas­i­ly ap­par­ent but must be stamped out.