REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT IN U.S. MILITARY UP 13%: REPORT

Fri 02 September 2022:

As bases started to come out of pandemic restrictions and public spaces reopened, reports of sexual assaults across the U.S. military increased by 13% last year, according to an annual report released Thursday to Congress by the Department of Defense.

The numbers from fiscal year 2021 are the highest since the US military began tracking sexual assault in 2006.

Mirroring the increase in those reports is the disclosure that close to 36,000 service members said in a confidential survey that they had experienced unwanted sexual contact — a dramatic increase over the roughly 20,000 who said that in a similar 2018 survey, U.S. defense and military officials said.

“The Department estimates that 35,875 active duty Service members experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact in the year prior to being surveyed,” it said.

That translates to 8.4% of active duty women experiencing sexual assault and 1.5% of men experiencing unwanted sexual contact.

The statistics only confirm what has been an ongoing problem in the US armed forces divisions for decades.

“Sexual assault and sexual harassment remain persistent and corrosive problems across the military,” according to the report.

The numbers showed that 8,866 cases of sexual assault were brought forward in 2021, a 13% increase from the year before. Of those cases, 7,249 were from active duty members who said they experienced sexual assault during their service.

The Army had the highest spike in sexual assault reports, jumping 26% from 2020. It is the largest increase for that division of the military since a 51% jump in 2013.

The Navy had a 9% increase in unwanted sexual contact, followed by the Air Force and Marine Corps – each reporting a 2% rise in sexual assaults.

The big increase is especially troublesome for the Army, which is struggling to meet its recruiting goals and is expected to miss the target by at least 10,000 — or by anywhere from 18% to 25% — at the end of September.

Army leaders have acknowledged that it is important for parents and others who influence recruits to feel comfortable that their son or daughter is safe and will be taken care of in the service.

Military officials said the Pentagon remains “sharply focused on solving this problem.”

“Across the entire Department of Defense, we are building enduring cultural change on an unprecedented scale,” Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, said in a statement.

“We are incorporating accountability and transparency into our response process while establishing a professionalized prevention workforce to reduce harmful behaviors and promote the well-being of our Service members,” he said. “Taken together, the efforts will set the right conditions to reduce and eliminate unwanted sexual contact, sexual assault, and sexual harassment in the Military Departments.”

The widespread restrictions on travel and movement for the military continued during fall 2020 and the early part of 2021, and many businesses, restaurants and bars were shut down or had limited service.

Things began to open up as more people were vaccinated in the summer and fall, but it’s also not clear whether that greater freedom contributed to the increase in assault reports.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent