April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and today the Feminist Peace Network is participating in the Blog Against Sexual Violence. The theme of this year’s campaign is
“Prevent Sexual Violence…in our workplaces“.
For American women, the workplace where they are most at danger for being sexually attacked is the U.S. Military. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) has an excellent piece in the Los Angeles Times documenting not only how prevalent sexual assault is in the military but also the inexcusably low rates of prosecution and conviction for these crimes.
“Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.”
“At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through “nonjudicial punishment,” which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of “insufficient evidence.”
This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual assault. In California, for example, 44% of reported rapes result in arrests, and 64% of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to the California Department of Justice.”
What Harman’s piece makes all too clear is that the culture of impunity when it comes to sexual assault in the military is a significant contributing factor to the continuing assault on women’s lives in the ranks.
Sexual assault is an important issue. Be sure to take some time this month to become more aware of the problem and to become part of the solution.
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