RIYADH – Saudi Arabia has begun to permit women to join its armed forces aspart of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 social program.

According to a statement released by the country’s General Securitydivision on Sunday, women can now apply for enrollment with the rank ofsoldier.

In order to be accepted the female candidates must fulfill 12 conditions,including being Saudi nationals brought up in the country. They also mustbe 25 to 35 years old, have high school education, and must pass a medicaltest. They must also be taller than 155 centimeters, with a suitable weightto height ratio.

Women married to non-Saudis, women who have a criminal record, and womenwith previous government employment history cannot apply.

The announcement comes as part of Riyadh’s social and economic reform push,dubbed “Vision 2030,” which was launched by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad binSalman.

In January, Saudi Arabia allowed women to enter stadiums to watch men’sfootball matches for the first time.

In September, Riyadh removed the driving ban on women as part of its recentreforms to undo the damage the ultraconservative kingdom has suffered fordecades of human rights violations both inside and outside of Saudi Arabia.Saudi Arabia was the last country in the world to permit women to obtaindriving licenses.

The move came several days after women were also permitted access into asports stadium, for the first time, to watch a concert.

Unveiled on 25 April 2016 by the then-Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman, theplan was touted as an assured way of transforming the country economicallyby the year 2030. The plan, he said, was aimed at ending Saudi Arabia’s“addiction” to oil, and it envisaged raising non-oil revenues from 163.5billion riyals (43.6 billion dollars) in 2015 to 1 trillion riyals (267billion dollars) by 2030.