A new
113-page report from the Human Rights Watch has found that almost two thirds of service members who report being sexually assaulted face some form of retaliation. Worse yet, whistleblowers are 12 times more likely to experience retaliation than their attackers are to be convicted of a sex offense. In some cases,
victims said the retribution they faced for reporting the assault was harder to weather than dealing with the assault itself.
“Survivors have little recourse if they experience retaliation and few of those who retaliate are held accountable,” the report said. “While reporting rates have improved dramatically in recent years, the positive trend won’t continue if victims see that those who report their assaults experience retaliation and that no action is taken to address the problem.” ...
A female member of the Coast Guard said she was assaulted by her supervisor during her first deployment in fall 2012, and suffered retaliation at nearly every stage of the reporting and judicial process. At first, she said her peers shunned her and believed a superior had encouraged those in her unit to alienate her. Later, superiors countered by lodging sexual assault charges against her, which, while ultimately dismissed, resulted in action to discharge her.
“I think that our service, the way they treated me, it definitely pushed me to the very brink,” she said. “By trying to do the right thing, I put myself in this situation.”
While the report showed that rates of reporting were up, Human Rights Watch only found two instances in which retaliators were punished for their actions.
Great, the military is inviting people to risk their careers but doing nothing to protect them once they do—in fact, the Pentagon released data earlier this month showing that incident reports had risen 11 percent since last year. The DOD report also revealed that retaliation was a real problem for victims, though the military seems to have little idea of how to remedy the situation.
“We’re not making enough progress on countering retaliation,” Mr. Carter said. “The report makes it crystal clear that we have to do more.”