Sex charges add to turmoil in Persian Gu

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Sex charges add to turmoil in Persian Gu
2
Fri, 02-27-2004 - 2:52pm

It's not bad enough that they are having to deal with terrorists...



http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/162115_rapes26.html

Sex charges add to turmoil in Persian Gulf


U.S. servicewomen say they've been assaulted, raped by fellow troops


Thursday, February 26, 2004


By ERIC SCHMITT
THE NEW YORK TIMES


WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military is facing the gravest allegations of sexual misconduct in years, with dozens of servicewomen in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere saying they were sexually assaulted or raped by fellow troops, lawmakers and victims advocates said yesterday.


There have been 112 reports of sexual misconduct over roughly the past 18 months in the Central Command area of operations, which includes Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan, military officials said yesterday. The Army has reported 86 incidents, the Navy 12, the Air Force eight and the Marine Corps six.


Military officials said the bulk of the allegations were being investigated and that some had already resulted in disciplinary actions, but they could not provide specifics. They added that a small number of the reports turned out to be unfounded.


In addition, about two dozen women at Sheppard Air Force Base, a large training facility in Texas, have reported to a local rape-crisis center that they were assaulted in 2002. The Air Force Academy in Colorado is still reeling from the disclosure last year of more than 50 reported assaults or rapes over the past decade.


The latest allegations are the most extensive set of sexual misconduct charges since the Navy's Tailhook incident of 1991 and the Army's drill sergeant scandal about five years later. In response, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month ordered a senior-level inquiry into the reported sexual assaults in Iraq and Kuwait, and how the armed services treats victims of sexual attacks. The Army and Air Force have opened similar investigations.


The issue came to a boil at a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, where Senate Democrats and Republicans sharply questioned the Pentagon's top personnel official and four officers over what the lawmakers said were inexplicable lapses in the military's ability to protect servicewomen from sexual assaults, to provide medical care and counseling to victims of attacks, and to punish violators.


Lawmakers said they were particularly appalled by reports that women serving in such roles military police and helicopters pilots had been assaulted by male colleagues in remote combat zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where immediate medical treatment and a sense of justice seemed to be lacking.


"No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by our some of own troops," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the personnel subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee.


Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., voiced concern that senior Pentagon leaders had not sufficiently addressed the problem. "I don't get a sense of outrage by military leadership," he said.


The Pentagon's personnel chief, David S.C. Chu, assured the lawmakers that the Defense Department was treating the issue very seriously and that "all policies are on the table" as part of the 90-day review, whose findings and recommendations are due by April 30. He said the immediate priority would be to provide better care to assault victims.


In an effort to blunt the criticism that the defense officials were not doing enough to address the issue, the Pentagon moved up the release of a congressionally mandated survey conducted in 2001 and 2002 -- a period before the most of the latest rash of complaints occurred -- that found that the number of servicewomen who said they had been sexually assaulted had declined to 3 percent from 6 percent in 1995 when the last survey was taken.


But that only seemed to anger senators even more. "Why in the world did it take two years to take a survey?" demanded Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who heads the full committee, noting that politicians routinely order overnight polls for their campaigns.


The latest sexual assault scandals have burst into full public view largely because of a recent series of investigative articles by the Denver Post and growing pressure from Congress, especially female lawmakers such as Collins and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.


But the number of reported assaults revealed yesterday exceeded the scope of what the Post articles had described. Christine Hansen, executive director of The Miles Foundation, a victims advocacy group in Newtown, Conn., told senators at the hearing that it had received reports of 68 cases of sexual assault, mainly from servicewomen in Iraq and Kuwait.


The women's complaints ranged from the lack of immediate emergency medical care and rape kits, to incomplete criminal investigations into their reports to retaliation by peers for reporting an assault, she said.


"We may just be beginning to see what the problem is," Hansen said in a telephone interview after the hearing.


The reported assaults have triggered action and reviews in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. When asked about the Army's victim assistance programs, Gen. George Casey Jr., the Army's vice chief of staff, acknowledged, "We have some more work to do in this area."


Chu said that the most junior members of the military are often those most involved the alleged assaults.


© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 8:40am

>"a victims advocacy group in Newtown, Conn."<


More info. about this group.


One has to question why the military doesn't provide services for these victims of abuse.


A Haven For Abused Service Personnel.


http://www.ctnow.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-miles0305.artmar05,1,3764523.story?coll=hc-headlines-topnews


Hidden in a converted barn in this Housatonic Valley town, amid the small, neatly kept shops and horse farms, are the identities of women who say they have been raped by U.S. military personnel.

Only workers and women who come here are allowed even to see the office where the reports are called in. For the Miles Foundation, keeping a low profile is a necessity.

This quiet, nonprofit, civilian group raised its public profile significantly last week when its executive director told a U.S. Senate committee about reports her office has received from 68 women serving in Iraq, Kuwait or Bahrain who say they have been sexually assaulted.

After the hearing, the foundation fielded 217 inquiries, the largest weekly total since its establishment in 1996.

That number could rise again. Today, foundation representatives will appear in Washington, D.C., to discuss additional allegations that have come in since that testimony - bringing the number of reports from female service personnel in the Persian Gulf to more than 80.

Executive Director Christine Hansen says the foundation has never sought the spotlight - in fact, this press conference will be its first - because the more it shares with the public, the more potential there is for problems.

Asked, for example, how women serving overseas communicate with the foundation, Hansen repeats what she told military officials when they asked the same question: "I can't tell you how. There are ways they get in touch with us."

Pressed, she says, "We don't want the military to know because we don't want that avenue cut off" for women who need help.

The foundation provides a range of services to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence in the military community.The caller may be the girlfriend of someone in the armed services, an ex-wife, or someone on active duty. Though the complainants are predominantly women, Hansen said, some have been men.

The 25 paid staff members offer such assistance as helping to obtain a protective order, finding a shelter or telling a caller how to report an assault. The all-female team includes lawyers, trauma specialists and social workers, some of whom have family ties with the military themselves.

Callers claiming abuse go through a 10-page intake form that takes an average of 45 minutes to complete, with details including a description of the incident and the rank and unit of the alleged abusers.

The foundation also trains advocates for battered women's organizations, conducts research and makes policy recommendations for lawmakers.

Hansen has a wry side that sometimes comes out in interviews, but she returns again and again to how serious the foundation takes its work.

"We recognize," Hansen says, "much of the work we do is about life and death."

Lately, much of that work has been focused on sexual assault involving active duty personnel.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last month ordered senior officials to investigate reports of sexual assault among troops in Iraq and Kuwait.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, top military officials said 112 reports of sexual misconduct have been made over the past 1½ years. Hansen testified that of the 68 cases reported to her group, 11 were subsequently reported to the military.

In her testimony, Hansen said the women who contacted her office described lack of access to medical care, emergency contraception or rape trauma specialists. "They have also," she told the committee, "noted the lack of or incomplete criminal investigations; administrative hearings being conducted by commanders; characterization of an attempted or completed rape as fraternization or adultery."

Hansen wants immediate improvements made, such as making rape kits easily available to active duty personnel.

She said the military must create a climate in which victims feel safe reporting incidents and feel assured that their allegations will be thoroughly investigated. She also called for the creation within the Defense Department of an office for victim advocacy.

David Chu, undersecretary for personnel and readiness for the Department of Defense, told the Senate panel that all department policies, including the Uniform Code of Military Justice, are currently under review. The way victims are treated requires greater attention, he told the committee, and prevention efforts must be redoubled.

The Washington press conference today will be held jointly with members of Amnesty International. Hansen plans to discuss, among other topics, the more than 200 complaints the foundation has received from active-duty personnel serving outside the Persian Gulf theater.

In a luncheon interview this week - she declines to be interviewed at the foundation offices - Hansen said she did not intend her organization to start seeking the spotlight.

Lynn Rosenthal, director of the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence, which has worked with the foundation for five years, said Hansen and her staff must operate under even more stringent confidentiality requirements than other women's abuse advocates.

"Miles has had to develop even stronger security than other battered women's programs," she said. "Military victims are sometimes the most at risk because they're so isolated.

"Their goal has not been to promote the organization for the organization's sake," she said. "Their goal has been to serve survivors as well as they could."

Funded through private donors, the Miles Foundation evolved from a case that Hansen, who has degrees in international law and diplomacy, was asked to work on in 1987, helping two boys in a military family who were victims of child abuse. From there, Hansen and a handful of advocates doing pro bono work in cases involving domestic violence found themselves taking on more military-related cases. The need for a formal organization soon became clear.

Originally based in Ledyard to be near the Navy submarine base in Groton, the foundation relocated in 1999. Clients hear about the foundation through word of mouth, referrals from advocacy groups - and, lately, by reading about it in news articles.

Hansen said that the average number of calls before October 2001 was between 60 and 65 a week. Since then, the weekly average has been 100 to 125 calls.

Over the years, some callers have questioned the motives of the foundation.

"We got numerous calls and letters and e-mails and such, questioning our patriotism - why were we questioning the military, who were we to think we could do that?" said Hansen, who has had several family members, including her father, serve in the armed forces. "Sometimes it makes you nervous and anxious. But we also kind of pass it off as, `Here's another one who doesn't understand what we do.'"

"We believe, here in our office, because of the work we do, we're probably more patriotic than those guys who call us," she said.

cl-Libraone~

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 03-05-2004 - 11:54am

>>"We got numerous calls and letters and e-mails and such, questioning our patriotism - why were we questioning the military, who were we to think we could do that?" said Hansen, who has had several family members, including her father, serve in the armed forces. "Sometimes it makes you nervous and anxious. But we also kind of pass it off as, `Here's another one who doesn't understand what we do.'"

"We believe, here in our office, because of the work we do, we're probably more patriotic than those guys who call us," she said.<<


But those idiots who call will probably always be too 'blind' to see that.