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Thank heavens someone is going after the military establishment on this. Instead of fretting about gay men and lesbians sleeping in the same quarters as straight service members, they need to clean house regarding its horrendous record of prosecuting service members who engage in rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment of colleagues, who are often left serving in silence without resolution of criminal acts against them. From the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) press release (you can read the filing here):
The Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit today with the U.S. District Court in New Haven, Connecticut against the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs for their failure to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests seeking government records documenting incidents of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military. Tens of thousands of service members each year are estimated to have experienced some form of military sexual trauma (MST). These acts occur nearly twice as often within military ranks as they do within civilian society.“The government’s refusal to even take the first step of providing comprehensive and accurate information about the sexual trauma inflicted upon our women and men in uniform, and the treatment and benefits MST survivors receive after service, is all too telling,” said Anuradha Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and Executive Director of SWAN. “The DOD and VA should put the interests of service members first and expose information on the extent of sexual trauma in the military to the sanitizing light of day.”
The lawsuit filed today states that the goal of the lawsuit is to “obtain the release of records on a matter of public concern, namely, the prevalence of MST within the armed services, the policies of the DOD and VA regarding MST and other related disabilities, and the nature of each agency’s response to MST.”
“The known statistics on military sexual trauma suggest that sexual abuse is all too prevalent in our military,” said Sandra Park, staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “”But we know that many service members who suffer from abuse are not receiving the treatment they need. The truth about the extent of this abuse and what has been done to address it must be made known.”
MST is particularly widespread among servicewomen, many of whom struggle to return to civilian life after suffering sexual assault or harassment while serving. While the number of homeless veterans has declined over the past 10 years, the number of homeless women veterans has doubled. In fact, 40 percent of homeless women veterans have been sexually assaulted while serving in the armed forces.
Survivors’ VA disability claims are often rejected because they cannot prove an initial assault or rape, even if the veteran has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by a VA military sexual trauma counselor.
“The government is failing to care for the overwhelming number of women who so desperately need help coping with something as devastating as rape, sexual assault and harassment,” said Andrew Schneider, Executive Director of the ACLU of Connecticut. “These women have already put their lives on the line by serving their country. The least that the government can do is disclose the scope of the problem.”
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Again a big yes yes yes!Lets get all these women supported too please! Hope this shows up on Het blogs too!Is it on HuffPo yet?
sexual assaultAnd the government should release figures on how many women are investigated or discharged under DADT because they reported a sexual assault. Unfortunately, we won’t know how many women stay silent and don’t report an assault because of lesbian baiting threats from the perpetrator. How about a lawsuit against DOD that the DADT policy undermines the safety of servicewomen?
It’s about time!I have always contended that the real reason some straight military men are violently against openly gay men serving along side them is they fear — not homosexuals or homosexuality per se — but that they (the straight man) will be treated the same way women are treated in the military. More often than not (I’ve heard as high as 90%) no adverse consequences occurs to the military men who sexually abuse, molest, or rape their female comrades.
With this litigation, perhaps military women will get some justice.
It’s probably only a matter of timebefore someone in the Pentagon tries to claim that all the women who’ve been raped must have dropped the soap in the shower, or some such.
It’s so terrific that this issue is finally being addressed, and in the courts, where it should have been years ago. As we know all to well, any remedy will have to come from the courts, not from congress, not from the Obama White House and certainly not from from the jerks who are smilingly called military leaders.
I’d buy that statistic…But the sobering thing is that 90% of the civilian assaults, abuse, molestation, or rape also result in no or minimal consequences.
I think the military SHOULD be held to a higher standard. I just don’t know how when the regular society still plays “blame/silence/slut-shame the victim” too.
yes, if this suit doesn’t shake that info looseIt’s certain that the problem is worse because perpetrators could rat their victim under DADT because she didn’t cooperate. This should be a part of the amended evidentiary discovery motions in this lawsuit.
It’s a very old story. With some of the evidence already visible.
(see also Christin M. Damiano, Lesbian Baiting in the Military: Institutionalized Sexual Harassment Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue,” 7 AM. U. J. GENDER, SOC. POL’Y & L. 499 (1999))
again: a modest proposalDADT repeal would involve removal of the UCMJ sodomy statute anyway, and DADT/Art. 125 repeal would remove one big component of male-on-female sexual harassment, that is, reporting a resisting victim as lesbian. Not that this will happen in the 112th Congress, but worth reiterating. This not only takes away one of the harmful facets of DADT, but makes this a crime — which it is not, at least, not explicitly, in military law.
It should be.
The principle is simple enough: you can’t teach a pig to sing. You can teach him that he will behave, or he will be bacon. The pig understands that.
addendaSome interesting points to ponder, for whomever wants to enact reforms:
1. Sexual harassment is not an explicit crime in statute military law. There is a policy against it — 10 U.S.C. § 1561 — which is supplemented by military regulations. But it’s not a punitive UCMJ article.
2. Sexual harassment is difficult to prosecute under the UCMJ under other offenses. There is some case law under Art. 128 (assault, which can include battery or fondling, etc.) and Art. 93 (cruelty toward a subordinate). Art. 134 is the usual charge, but even that is problematic (see, e.g., United States v. Peszynski, 40 M.J. 874 (1994), which overturned a conviction on grounds that the statute is too vague.) Art. 92, failure to obey regulations, is possible.
3. Servicemembers can’t sue for injuries inflicted in the line of duty, and that includes sexual harassment. Feres doctrine.
There really oughta be a law.
Every Woman Has A StoryAfter twenty years in the military, I know that every woman in uniform has a story to tell about sexual harassment. When I complained to my company commander in Germany that a fellow soldier in my unit was stalking me, he assured me that the soldier would be reprimanded. The very next day, the stalker was promoted – and my nightmare continued. Like DADT, sexual harassment is a discrace to core military values. Our military, the largest employer in the world, must be held accountable for not walking the talk and living up to its own standards.