by William Dean
(08/02/06)
Here's another of those shocking sex statistics we hate to see: "From 2004 to 2005, there has been a 40 percent increase in the reports of sexual assaults in the military."
"H.R. 5212: Military Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Act: To reduce sexual assault and domestic violence involving members of the armed forces and their family members and partners through enhanced programs of prevention and deterrence, enhanced programs of victims services, and strengthened provisions for prosecution of assailants, and for other purposes."
This legislation, introduced by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), includes a variety of provisions, but its first title seeks to establish an Office of Victim Advocate to assist victims of alleged assaults.
Rep. Slaughter explained in her testimony that the Defense Department needs an Office of Victim Advocate "to oversee and coordinate efforts to prevent and respond to cases of family violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking within the military and among military families."
In rejecting this proposal, the Pentagon only said that "the Department does not tolerate sexual assault of any kind and the department has worked vigorously to implement programs to prevent it."
Anita Sanchez, communications director of the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides services to victims of military violence explains that there have already been several women declared AWOL for seeking treatment from the effects of sexual assault, but -- because of peer and hierarchical pressure -- most of them are too scared to speak out.
Since the fall of 2003, the Miles Foundation has documented some 518 cases of sexual assault on women who currently serve or have served in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Qatar. The foundation has staff counselors available around the clock. They report frequent midnight calls from service members or their family members. After counselors and attorneys help the women access medical care and explain the reporting process, they try to transport them to a safe environment for care and treatment.
Because the victims are in a combat situation, the Miles counselors have had to develop new protocols. They can't just send a chopper in there to evac the victims. The counselors must have the victim's official permission to contact military authorities to have them re-assigned. If they need to move them out of Baghdad or Kuwait, then they have to get their permission to contact the military and say that they need to move Specialist V Joanna Jones or whomever, because a sexual assault has transpired.
Last year, Rep. Lane Evans (D-Ill), the ranking Democratic Member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, criticized the Bush administration for failing to release a Veterans Affairs study on military sexual trauma among the National Guard and Reserve troops. The report revealed that sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape are at an all-time high among both women and men. The estimated prevalence for rape among females is 11 percent, and 1.2 percent among males.
This report, which was originally to be released by March 2001, only saw the public light in September. In her statement, Evans said, "The women and men who have suffered military sexual trauma deserve our respect, compassion, and commitment to provide them with ready access to counseling and treatment. I am releasing the report, which I have obtained through other sources, to shine a light on a serious problem that the White House wants to hide in the shadows."
In 2003, Congress began requiring the Department of Defense to report the number of sexual assault cases on file. In 2005, military criminal investigators received 2,374 allegations of sexual assault involving members of the armed forces worldwide. "That number is a 40 percent increase from 2004. The '04 number is a 25 percent increase from 2003, so that's a 65 percent increase in two years."
Colleen Mussolino, co-founder of Women Veterans of America (WVA), an advocacy group for women veterans, served as a cook at Women's Army Corps headquarters in Fort McClellan, Alabama., from 1965 to 1967. "I was gang-raped, beaten, and left for dead," she says. "I was taken by the criminal investigation team and treated like a prisoner of war for six weeks, with threats. I finally signed a paper promising that I wouldn't prosecute, so I know how the system works."
WVA estimates that nine out of ten women in the military have been either harassed or assaulted. "Look at the numbers that have been presented. You have to realize there are far more that have not come forward," Mussolino says. "When I counsel women and help them with medical benefits, I find most were too scared to report the assault. It's such a horrible thing that you just keep it to yourself for years."
"The military is closing its eyes," she adds. "They don't want to deal with it. They may be battle-ready, but when it comes to assaults on women, they don't know how to handle it."
Rev. Dorothy Mackey, executive director of Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAAMP), was raped and assaulted while serving as a U.S. Air Force Captain and Commander from 1983 to 1992. Her cases were never prosecuted after a Justice Department attorney said they "could not bring this case to trial for national security reasons; to do so would be contrary to good order, morale and discipline in the military."
STAAMP's toll-free number for sexual assault victims in the military has received 5,200 calls since 1997, including many from women and men now serving in the Middle East. "These kids are trying to figure out how to survive. The system is shutting down on them and putting them at risk," Mackey says. "We've been able to get some of them out of the military by going directly to the Pentagon and saying, 'We are telling you about a criminal incident. Here are the people who are raping and abusing. We are now putting you on notice that if anything else happens to this person, we will expose you.'"
Two years ago, Dorothy Mackey and other women veterans recounted their experiences at the National Summit of Women Veterans Issues in Washington, DC, June 19th and 20th. As an officer, scores of women had come to Mackey and told her about abuse and rapes they had suffered, by officers, fellow enlisted men, and doctors. Many of the attacks involved servicemen intentionally getting women drunk or drugging them and taking them off base.
"When you are a new woman walking onto a military base, you are like a deer, and it's deer hunting season, but you don't know it," McKay related. "You think you can trust these people, you believe in the mission you are on together."
In 1992, Mackey quit the service, mainly because of the repeated incidences of sexual assault and domestic violence that she had seen go unpunished on the base. In 1994 she filed a civil lawsuit in a district court in Dayton, Ohio, against the specific men who had assaulted her, including the superiors who abused her when she tried to report the previous assaults. The Justice Department decided to represent the defendants, so the case was moved to Federal court. The Department of Justice attorney said the case should not be brought to trial on the grounds that it constituted a threat to national security, representing a "disruption of good order, morale and discipline." After making its way through the appeals courts, it ended up in front of the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case in 1998 and again in 2000.
Meanwhile Mackey founded the group called Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAAMP) to fight the rampant rape and sexual abuse in the military and demand justice and reform. She says over 4,300 women have contacted her about being raped or assaulted while in the service, and in the vast majority of cases watching their attackers go scot-free while they are humiliated and threatened for speaking out about the attacks.
At a press conference during the National Summit of Women Veterans Issues, women cited surveys indicating that up to 50 percent of military women have experienced sexual assaults, and 78 percent have experienced sexual harassment. Because of the intimidation and harassment that women face for reporting assaults, the military's own numbers are much lower. But even so, they show a dramatic rise in assaults over the past few years. An analysis of Army records and reports published by The Washington Post on June 3 showed that reported sexual assaults increased 19 percent from 1999 to 2002, from 658 to 753, and rapes increased 25 percent, from 356 to 445.
A May 27, 2004 report from an Army task force stated that the Army "does not have a clear picture of the sexual assault issue" and lacks an "overarching policy" to deal with the problem. The report was prepared because of complaints by women's groups and lawmakers about the rapidly increasing assaults against servicewomen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
During the National Summit, women pointed out that far from being an isolated problem, the military nurtures a culture of sexual violence and contempt for women that is linked to the rape and sexual abuse of women in occupied countries or countries where the U.S. has military bases, as well as rapes and assaults of women in U.S. prisons and jails. Rapes and sexual assaults are also often known to be high in U.S. cities and towns with military bases.
On June 28, a Nashville TV station reported that Fort Campbell soldier Johnathan David Loynes was arrested for violently kidnapping 10 and 13-year-old girls who lived nearby and trying to force them to perform oral sex on him.
"It's all connected," said Phoebe Jones, a member of the group Global Women's Strike, which is joining STAAMP and other women's groups in a campaign to "STAAMP Out Rape by the Military."
"You have prison guards here, like Charles Grainer (implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal), who go to Iraq and abuse people there. Then you have soldiers come back from Iraq or Afghanistan getting jobs as prison guards, and they rape and abuse people. The military could stop it if they want to, but they don't want to. They're socializing men into doing this."
Global Women's Strike has been in contact with women's and human rights advocates in Iraq who say women detainees and civilians are regularly raped and abused there. A press release they put out alleges that as part of the inquiry into abuses in Iraqi prisons, Congressmen have been shown photos of gang rapes and other abuses of women.
"They're suppressing the photos of women being raped because the public would just be outraged," said Jones.
