Women's Rights Violations Still Pervasive in U.S. Military

By Diana Price

August 29, 2006

Resources

National Sexual Assault Hotline 1-800-656-4673 Operated by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) The Miles Foundation A private non-profit organization that provides advice and social services for victims of violence associated with the military

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In early March of this year, a man in Iraq reassured his worried neighbor that her young daughter would be safe from U.S. soldiers. The Iraqi mother knew that U.S. soldiers had harassed her daughter, and was afraid that they would come for her daughter at night. Her neighbor told her, "The Americans would not do such a thing."

Days later, the young girl was raped, shot and set afire, and four of her family members were murdered, all allegedly by U.S. soldiers. Six soldiers have been charged, and a decision will be made in September whether to court-martial four of the soldiers for murder and rape.

And recently, it has come to light that women in the U.S. military and related institutions are at significant risk of being sexually assaulted, harassed and raped, by their fellow service members.

While the Department of Defense has pledged to crack down on violence against women in the armed forces, follow-up on that promise has been slow and piecemeal. Sexual assault survivors, their advocates, and their supporters in Congress continue to call loudly for systemic change that will provide for safe and confidential reporting, effective intervention, comprehensive prevention, and a concerted effort on the part of the Department of Defense to record and analyze incidents of violence against women in all branches of the armed forces, and punish the perpetrators.

Beth Davis, a former U.S. Air Force Academy cadet, urged Congress two months ago "to bind the rising tide of injustice and the unchecked wave of rape and sexual assault that washes through our military and continues to flood our nation's shore with the drowned bodies of our individual liberty." Davis described being raped and sexually assaulted as a first year cadet, only to be punished and dismissed from the academy after reporting the incidents. She speaks, she estimates, on behalf of thousands of survivors of violence like herself.

She has to estimate the number of survivors because the Department of Defense has yet to even start counting all of the incidents of violence against women reported in every branch of the military. The Pentagon was called upon to implement a comprehensive incident-reporting system in 1988, but only the Air Force and the Army currently feed into the Defense Incident-Based Reporting System (DIBRS). U.S. Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced a bill this June demanding that $1,000 be deducted from the secretary of defense's pay for each day the system is overdue after January 1, . DIBRS collects data not only on sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence, but also on fraternization, suicide, and drug abuse.

We know from news reports that women at all military levels-recruitment, service academies, and in the armed services-have been victims of violence at the hands of their male counterparts. This year, a National Guard recruiter has been accused of assaulting seven young women, and charged with 31 counts of rape and sexual battery. The recruiter, Sgt. Eric Vetsey, reportedly found most of his alleged victims while recruiting at Indianapolis-area high schools. The young women assaulted by Vetsey were between 16 and 20 years old, and their victimization is not atypical: Associated Press journalist Martha Mendoza reported on August 23, 2006, that "more than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters."

In a survey conducted this spring at The Citadel, a public military college in South Carolina, almost 20 percent of female cadets reported being sexually assaulted since enrolling. Sixty-three percent of the assaults reported by survey participants were never reported to authorities at The Citadel. Another survey of U.S. military academies released last year found that more than half of female respondents and 11 percent of male respondents had experienced some type of sexual harassment since enrolling.

The Defense Task Force on Sexual Harassment and Violence at the Military Service Academies was established in 2004. The task force's last report, released in June 2005, made many recommendations, including that service academies protect communications made by sexual assault victims to health care providers and victim advocates, and that the Uniform Code of Military Justice be amended to protect the privacy of both victims and those who stand accused. This June, Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) held a hearing to examine whether academies had acted on the Task Force's recommendations. Representatives from the academies reported that strides had been made in preventative education of students and resource centers for survivors. Civilian experts on violence against women in the military stressed the enduring need for confidential communications between victims and advocates.

In 2005, Congress established a Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services in recognition that violence against women is not confined to service academies. However, as of this summer (2006), the Department of Defense has not appointed any members to the task force. At Rep. Shays' hearing, Congress members denounced this inaction.

Meanwhile, a 2005 military criminal investigative unit report showed that there were 2,374 reports of sexual assault in the military services that year. The Miles Foundation, a non-profit research and direct service organization focused on interpersonal violence in the armed forces, has received over 500 direct reports of sexual assaults against female service members in Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and Qatar.

Christine Hansen, executive director of the Miles Foundation, stated at the Shays hearing that prevention, intervention, treatment and justice systems for survivors of violence remain inadequate in the military. The Department of Defense (DoD), she explained, has failed to analyze sex offender behavior, or educate military communities about it. Protocols have yet to be developed for military law enforcement, criminal investigations, and healthcare. Also, Hansen related that while new DoD policy states that survivors have a choice of whether to disclose the details of their assaults without triggering the military investigative process, some survivors report being pressured to choose non-restricted reporting, meaning their communications are not confidential and they are subject to retaliation from other servicemembers and superiors.

Suzanne Swift is just one of an unknown number of women in the military whose service experience involved sexual harassment, assault, and rape, and all without recourse. In 2003, she enlisted at 19 years old, intending to become a military police officer. A month after her training, she was deployed to Iraq, where she was sexually harassed and assaulted by other unit members, and was directed not to report the incidents. Upon returning from Iraq, she was sexually harassed by her team leader. Suzanne reported this, but the only consequences she saw were his transfer to another unit, and reprisals against her from others in her unit. Eight months after her return from Iraq, she received orders to re-deploy to Iraq in January 2006. Suzanne went AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and started treatment for post traumatic stress disorder. She was arrested on June 11, 2006, and since then has been in jail, awaiting a decision from the Army about her fate. Her mother has spearheaded a campaign for her daughter's honorable discharge. According to the Miles Foundation, there are other women like Suzanne who have sought treatment after being sexually assaulted and been declared AWOL.

What happened to Suzanne's team leader after she reported his harassment of her is not unusual. The Miles Foundation reports that the majority of actions in response to allegations of sexual harassment and assault are administrative in nature. A Washington Post article published in March 2006 stated that in 2005, military commanders took punitive action against 274 offenders, out of 1,474 alleged assailants, and 104 of these punitive actions were merely administrative sanctions or discharges. Only 79 were court-martialed, and 91 alleged assailants received non-judicial penalties. Action was not taken on over 600 allegations because they were judged to be unfounded or lacking sufficient evidence. Some 100 offenders went unidentified.

Currently, there are 202,248 women serving on active duty, comprising 14.4 percent of service members. There are 141,922 women in the Reserves, and 63,831 women in the National Guard. In February 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that "Sexual assault will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense." That promise has been broken again and again.

NOW urges Congress, in its oversight role, to call Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to answer for his failure to enforce that pledge of no tolerance..