[PAA-Discuss] 17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual Violence

[Juli3 at aol.com]

17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual Violence
 
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17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual  Violence
Feb 15, 2011 – 3:25 PM 
 
 
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 (/team/andrea-stone/)    
_Andrea  Stone_ (/team/andrea-stone/)  Senior Washington Correspondent 
WASHINGTON -- It may become a  landmark case to force the military to take 
rape and sexual assault seriously.  Or it could be yet another failed 
attempt in a decades-long battle by women to  be accepted in the armed forces.

Seventeen veterans and active-duty  service members today took the first 
step to determining that, suing the  Pentagon on charges of violating their 
constitutional rights to serve their  country.

They accused two secretaries of defense of condoning, ignoring  and 
implicitly encouraging sexual abuse in the ranks in a 42-page _complaint_ 
(http://www.scribd.com/doc/48879866/Military-Rape-and-Sexual-Assault-Litigation)  
filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Va.,  which contains phrases 
like "f---ing whore," "bitch" and "troublemaker."


The  plaintiffs, who include two men, come from every military branch. They 
charge  they were victimized twice -- once by their assailants and again by 
the  institution they served.

"The system is driven by rape myths," said Myla  Haider, a former Army 
criminal investigator who was raped by a co-worker. The  co-worker was later 
court-martialed in another case as a "serial sex  offender."

"There is a pervasive attitude within DOD that any man might  commit these 
types of offenses and therefore when these things do come up it is  seen as 
something that is commited by a peer or just another soldier" and not  taken 
seriously, said Haider, a plaintiff in the suit.

Such attitudes  aren't new. Ever since the infamous _Tailhook  scandal_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal)  broke out in 1991 after the 
first Gulf War, an unending series of  investigations, congressional hearings, 
reports, training regimens and special  offices have sought to end the 
problem that the acronym-obsessed service now has  given its very own name: MST 
-- military sexual trauma.

Eleanor Smeal of  the Feminist Majority Foundation, who has watched for 
decades as _women  warriors_ 
(http://www.aolnews.com/2010/02/26/for-women-in-military-a-long-slog-toward-acceptance/)  fought to be accepted in the macho 
ranks of the military, said the  challenge in civil court "is necessary 
because so much else has  failed."

As a Marine captain, Anuradha Bhagwati witnessed her own senior  officers 
violate sexual harassment policies.


Cliff Owen, AP
Anuradha Bhagwati, 35, of New York, is executive director of  the Service 
Women's Action Network. She says sexual violence in the military  "threatens 
our national security."

Bhagwati is now the head of the  advocacy group Service Women's Action 
Network. She says she has seen those  violators "shirk their responsibilities to 
their own troops ... transfer sexual  predators out of the units instead of 
prosecuting them, promote sexual predators  during ongoing investigations 
and accuse highly decorated enlisted service  members of lying."

She called sexual violence "a plague upon the United  States military" that 
"threatens our national security by undermining  operational readiness, 
draining morale, harming retention and destroying  lives."

The stories told by Haider and other plaintiffs at a news  conference this 
morning were harrowing. Among them:
    *   Kori Cioca, the lead plaintiff, said she was constantly harassed by 
her  Coast Guard supervisor. After she made a mistake during a knot-tying 
quiz, he  called her a "stupid f---ing female, who didn't belong in the 
military" and  then spit in her face. After complaining to her superior, the 
abuse escalated  to stalking, sexual harassment and ultimately rape in December 
2005. Despite  an admission from her rapist, commanders told Cioca if she 
pressed charges she  would be court-martialed for lying and later faced 
retaliation. 
    *   Sarah Albertson was raped by a fellow Marine who outranked her in 
2006.  Because they had been drinking alcohol, both she and the man were 
charged with  "inappropriate barracks conduct," and she was ordered to "respect" 
her  assailant. Commanders forced the corporal to interact with her rapist 
for two  more years, suspending her security clearance and downgrading her 
work  assignments because she took prescription medicine to cope with the 
trauma of  being forced to live and work with her rapist. 
    *   Rebekah Havrilla was an Army sergeant serving in Afghanistan in 
2006 when  she was sexually harassed by a supervisor and later raped by another 
soldier.  She reported it under the military's _restricted reporting 
policy_ 
(http://womensenews.org/story/military/110209/militarys-restricted-reporting-draws-fire) . When she later saw her rapist  at a base in Missouri, she 
went into shock and sought the help of a military  chaplain. She said he told 
her "it must have been God's will for her to be  raped" and recommended she 
attend church more often.
Most of the  plaintiffs have been diagnosed with _post-traumatic stress 
disorder_ (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-01-womenvets_N.htm)  or 
other mental stress  problems. They charged the Pentagon with a "systemic 
failure to stop rape and  sexual assault."

Cliff Owen, AP
Veterans Kori Cioca, 25, of Wilmington, Ohio, left, and  Panayiota 
Bertzikis, 29, of Somerville, Mass., were both assaulted and raped  while serving in 
the U.S. Coast Guard. They are among the plaintiffs suing the  Pentagon 
over its approach to rape and sexual assault cases.


The  suit names former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his successor, 
Robert  Gates, for failing to "eradicate a well-entrenched misogynistic 
military culture  that permits Command to scoff at rape allegations, threaten 
victims with courts  martial and exercise unfettered discretion to decide to 
use 'non-judicial  punishment' to penalize rape and sexual assault."

The lawsuit  specifically cites Rumsfeld, desperate for volunteers to fight 
in Afghanistan  and Iraq, for granting "moral waivers" to recruits arrested 
or convicted of  domestic and sexual violence. Despite a federal law making 
it a felony for such  offenders to possess a firearm, he provided an 
exception to members of the  military.

Sex crimes, it noted, soared 24 percent in the year before  Rumsfeld's 
resignation in 2006.

Gates is charged with "failing to take  reasonable steps" to protect the 
plaintiffs from repeated abuse. It notes that  he directed the head of the 
Pentagon's Sexual Assault and Prevention and  Response Office to ignore a 
congressional subpoena to testify and failed to  create a centralized database of 
sex crimes as mandated by lawmakers.

The  current defense secretary's "failures to act ... led to a steady and 
dramatic  increase" in the number of rapes and sexual assaults, rising by 25 
percent in  Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 and continuing to increase at 
double digits  annually since then.

"Sexual assault is a wider societal problem, and  Secretary Gates has been 
working with the service chiefs to make sure the U.S.  military is doing all 
it can to prevent and respond to it," Pentagon spokesman  Geoff Morrell 
said in a statement.

"That means providing more money,  personnel, training and expertise, 
including reaching out to other large  institutions such as universities to learn 
best practices. This is now a command  priority, but we clearly still have 
more work to do in order to ensure all of  our service members are safe from 
abuse."

The lawsuit cited the  Pentagon's own statistics that reported 3,230 rapes 
and other sexual assaults in  2009. Because the military acknowledges that 
80 percent of victims don't report  the crime, the real number may be more 
than 16,000.

Moreover, the  complaint charges that the Department of Defense "fails to 
report conviction  rates from courts marital, which is critical data needed 
by Congress to assess  whether reforms are being implemented."

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Still, the plaintiffs face a high hurdle.

Eugene Fidell, president  of the National Institute of Military Justice, 
said the facts as presented in  the complaint are "certainly disturbing" and 
merit attention from Pentagon  leaders. However, he said he is "skeptical 
that this case, as a case, will gain  any traction" in court.

>From a legal point of view, he said, it is a  steep climb for 17 plaintiffs 
to argue for systemic abuses in a military of some  2 million people.

"I don't know that a culture of sexism and misogyny has  ever been 
recognized as a basis" for suing for violations of equal protection,  he added. "Not 
every sexual assault is a violation of equal protection." 
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