Almost a quarter of female troops become victims of sex assaults in combat zones
RT | December 28, 2012
Almost half of all US women deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan say they were sexually harassed, while nearly one-quarter claim they were sexually assaulted. The findings shed light on the additional stress military women face when they work abroad.
Research by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that sexual misconduct is a much greater problem than previously believed, since the Pentagon asserts that few reports were filed alleging sexual assault.
Only 115 such reports were filed in 2011, even though about 20,000 women were serving in Afghanistan in February. One of the study’s lead researchers, Amy Street, believes the data demonstrates an emotional cost of war that has hardly been considered.
The “lion’s share of the attention… has focused on combat exposure,” she told USA Today.
Of the 1,100 women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and were surveyed by Street’s team, 48.6 percent admitted to being sexually harassed and 22.8 percent admitted to being sexually assaulted – and in some cases raped – while serving in a war zone.
But regardless of the new findings, the Pentagon has not promised to take any action to tackle the problem of sexual misconduct. Nate Galbreath, a senior adviser for the Pentagon’s sexual assault prevention office, said that he is not assessing Street’s research until he learns more about how it was conducted.
“It comes down to culture. (It) hasn’t changed, no matter what the generals or the secretaries of Defense say about zero tolerance,” California Rep. Jackie Speier told USA Today. “They have not scrubbed the sexism… out of the military.”
Many of the women who reported sexual harassment allege that the perpetrators were US military men. Earlier this year, dozens of female recruits at an Air Force base in Texas said they were sexually assaulted by their male instructors, while an Army brigadier is being forced to appear in court for sexually assaulting lower-ranking women while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Street’s study, 47 percent of women who suffered from sexual misconduct said the offenders held a higher rank.
And the problem has been on the rise: reports of sexual assault at US military academies have increased from 65 in 2011 to 80 in 2012 – although most such cases seem to go unreported. The Pentagon estimated last year that the number of reports of sexual assaults on women is less than 20 percent of the number of actual incidents.
“Women in the armed forced are now more likely to be assaulted by a fellow soldier than killed in combat,” Newsweek’s Jesse Ellison wrote last year.
But even though the problem has long been known, little action has been done to tackle it and only six percent of cases lead to a conviction, causing the women to “suffer in silence”, The Huffington Post reported.
While Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has claimed a no-tolerance policy for sexual assaults in the military, Sgt. Rebekah Havrilla believes his promises have no meaning.
“This whole concept of ‘zero tolerance’, it’s just words and no action,” she told The Huffington Post. The woman said that while the violence of war was brutal, she was most disturbed by the way the military men sexually harassed and assaulted her.
“Suicide bombers in pieces, [people] pulling dead American soldiers out of Humvees – I have seen a lot of stuff people should never see,” she said. “It was part of my job; death was something I had to deal with. I never, ever thought I was gonna have to deal with my supporters being the ones that did the most damage.”
During a one-year period between 2010 and 2011, the Pentagon received 3,192 reports of sexual assault, which equates to about 52 a day.
The new study by the Department of Veteran Affairs simply brings forth more evidence of the problem of sexual assault in the US military, which is especially prevalent in war zones. The Pentagon has so far refused to comment on the survey results.
Related articles
- VA finds sexual assaults more common in war zones (usatoday.com)
Share this:
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
- Click to print (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- More
- Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Related
December 27, 2012 - Posted by aletho | Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Sexual assault, United States, United States Department of Veterans Affairs
No comments yet.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Featured Video
GRADUALISM AND THE ROAD TO TOTALITARIANISM
For more videos go to the Aletho News – Video Category
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: Manufacturing the Crisis
By Simon Elmer | Architects for Social Housing | January 27, 2021
It’s official. The UK now has the ‘highest COVID death-rate in the world’ [January 27th – Ed]. To use a phrase repeatedly employed by our Government throughout this crisis to describe the new technologies and programmes of the UK biosecurity state, our national version of the global coronavirus pandemic is ‘world-beating’.
In the UK, with only the 6th largest economy in the world, we’ve managed to beat even the epidemically obese USA, which as in most things leads the world in ‘COVID-19 deaths’, as well as the systemically impoverished Peru, which at one time combined the 6th strictest lockdown restrictions in the world with the highest mortality rate. However, although UK’s new pre-eminence has been headline-news in the mainstream media and retweeted across social media, a quick check shows that this only refers to the seven-day average of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the week before it was reported.
In COVID-19 deaths per million of the population the UK (on 1,471 on 27 January) is still lagging behind Gibraltar (2,048), San Marino (1,913), Belgium (1,797), Slovenia (1,647) and the Czech Republic (1,473), and is closely followed by Italy (1,431) — although, if it’s any consolation to the COVID-faithful, we have a higher number of ‘COVID-19 deaths’ than all these countries.
I make no apology for writing flippantly about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, because it’s in precisely this manner that these deaths are being used by our governments and media, and I want to begin to challenge their cynical manipulation of the statistics by showing how easy it is to manufacture a ‘news story’. As always — although we appear to have forgotten it along with everything else we knew about the world in which we live — the old adage about ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’ holds true to this greatest of all lies, the manufacturing of the coronavirus crisis.
What I want to do in this article, in contrast, is look at the figures for the mortality rates, places and causes of death in England in 2020 that are slowly being published by the Office for National Statistics in 2021, and discuss what they can tell us about what really happened last year. The figures aren’t conclusive, as the changes to disease taxonomy, protocols for filling in death certificates, criteria for recording deaths, and the flawed testing programme mean we’ll never know how many people actually died from COVID-19 in the UK in 2020; but if we analyse these figures accurately and in their context, it is possible to see some way through the deception to the reality they conceal. … continue
About Aletho News’ Name
Blog Roll
Visits Since December 2009
- 4,420,930 hits
Looking for something?
Archives
Calendar
Categories
Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Militarism Nuclear Power Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for IsraelTags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa AIPAC al-Qaeda Argentina Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Bolivia Brazil Canada Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Colombia Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Da’esh Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem John Kerry Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank Yemen ZionismRecent Comments
Aletho News
- Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: Manufacturing the Crisis April 14, 2021
- Former Pfizer VP Speaks Out On Dangers Of MRNA Vaccines & Covid Illusion April 14, 2021
- Chinese Foreign Ministry Calls for Promptly Starting Talks on Space Arms Control April 14, 2021
- ‘Our focus was to get Trump out of office’: CNN technical director admits network is ‘PROPAGANDA’ April 14, 2021
- Rule by Fiat: When the Government Does Whatever It Wants April 13, 2021
- Study Links Pesticides To Childhood Central Nervous System Tumors April 13, 2021
- Man Finds Out Government is Lying on a Monumental Scale, But Still Thinks They’re Doing Good April 13, 2021
- FDA Says Stop the Johnson & Johnson Coronavirus Vaccine Shots April 13, 2021
- Israeli Supreme Court green lights Israel’s ‘Cyber Unit’ that works with social media giants to censor user content April 13, 2021
- The Magic of Israel April 13, 2021
- Iran Starts 60% Enrichment in Reaction to Natanz Sabotage April 13, 2021
- CNN Raises Eyebrows After Using Images of Ukrainian Tanks While Bashing Russia’s ‘War Preparations’ April 13, 2021
- Three Things Most People Don’t Know About Physician-Assisted Death April 13, 2021
- GRADUALISM AND THE ROAD TO TOTALITARIANISM April 13, 2021
- State Lawmakers Attack Federal Misuse of National Guard April 13, 2021
- The Military Origins of Facebook April 12, 2021
- Brown University: The surveillance school April 12, 2021
- Mission Accomplished: The Corbett Report Removed From YouTube April 12, 2021
OffGuardian
- A Damned Murder Inc: Kennedy’s Battle Against the Leviathan April 14, 2021
- CIJA Sting Operation Stirs FCDO’s ‘Hotch Potch’ of Spooks April 13, 2021
- “You are Damaged and Only We Can Repair You” April 12, 2021
Consent Factory
- The “Unvaccinated” Question March 29, 2021
Richie Allen
- Almost 40% Of US Marines Have REFUSED Coronavirus Jab! April 10, 2021
- Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Causes Fatal Blood Clot April 10, 2021
- Enforcement Teams To Patrol Pubs Looking For Rule-Breakers April 10, 2021
- 99 Year-Old Man Becomes First Person To Die Of Old Age In A Year April 9, 2021
If Americans Knew
- Opinion: Israeli Elections, Israel’s Movable Feast April 12, 2021
- Sir Alan Duncan blasts pro-Israel lobby over ‘disgusting interference’ in British politics April 12, 2021
- Dancing While Palestinian April 11, 2021
Not A Lot Of People Know That
- BBC Play Green Turtle Climate Card–But Ignore The Real Threats April 14, 2021
- Copper demand from auto industry expected to double as EVs ramp up April 14, 2021
- The Climate Blame Game April 14, 2021
Sebastian Rushworth M.D.
- Do fruit and vegetables prevent cancer? April 9, 2021
More Links
Contact:
atheonews (at) gmail.comDisclaimer
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
Leave a Reply