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<DIV>17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual Violence</DIV>
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<DIV><A href="http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/15/17-victims-sue-pentagon-over-plague-of-sexual-violence/">17
Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual Violence</A> </DIV>
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<H1 class=entry-title>17 Victims Sue Pentagon Over 'Plague' of Sexual
Violence</H1>
<DIV class=postTime><ABBR class="published updated" title=2011-02-15T15:25:00-05:00>Feb 15, 2011 – 3:25 PM</ABBR> </DIV>
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<DIV class=writerProfile><A href="/team/andrea-stone/"></IMG></A>
<P class="author vcard"><A href="/team/andrea-stone/"><B class=fn>Andrea
Stone</B></A> <SPAN class=blogtitle>Senior Washington Correspondent</SPAN>
</P></DIV>
<DIV id=article-entry-content class=entry-content>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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>They accused two secretaries of defense of condoning, ignoring
and implicitly encouraging sexual abuse in the ranks in a 42-page <A href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/48879866/Military-Rape-and-Sexual-Assault-Litigation" target=_blank>complaint</A> filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Va.,
which contains phrases like "f---ing whore," "bitch" and "troublemaker."<BR>
<DIV class="enhMed rightWrap"><!--Starting of UEC --><!--End of UEC --></DIV><BR>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.<BR><BR>"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."<BR><BR>"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.<BR><BR>Such attitudes
aren't new. Ever since the infamous <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal" target=_blank>Tailhook
scandal</A> 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.<BR><BR>Eleanor Smeal of
the Feminist Majority Foundation, who has watched for decades as <A href="http://www.aolnews.com/2010/02/26/for-women-in-military-a-long-slog-toward-acceptance/">women
warriors</A> 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."<BR><BR>As a Marine captain, Anuradha Bhagwati witnessed her own senior
officers violate sexual harassment policies.<BR><BR>
<DIV class="enhMed rightWrap">
<DIV class=credit>Cliff Owen, AP</DIV>
<DIV class=caption>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."</DIV></DIV>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."<BR><BR>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."<BR><BR>The stories told by Haider and other plaintiffs at a news
conference this morning were harrowing. Among them:<BR>
<UL>
<LI>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.</LI>
<LI>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.</LI>
<LI>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 <A href="http://womensenews.org/story/military/110209/militarys-restricted-reporting-draws-fire" target=_blank>restricted reporting policy</A>. 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.</LI></UL>Most of the
plaintiffs have been diagnosed with <A href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-01-womenvets_N.htm" target=_blank>post-traumatic stress disorder</A> or other mental stress
problems. They charged the Pentagon with a "systemic failure to stop rape and
sexual assault."<BR>
<DIV class="enhMed rightWrap">
<DIV class=credit>Cliff Owen, AP</DIV>
<DIV class=caption>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.</DIV></DIV><BR>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."<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>Sex crimes, it noted, soared 24 percent in the year before
Rumsfeld's resignation in 2006.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>"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.<BR><BR>"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."<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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."<BR><BR>
<DIV style="COLOR: rgb(192,0,0)" class=inContent><SPAN>Sponsored Links</SPAN>
</DIV>Still, the plaintiffs face a high hurdle.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>"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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