Pentagon Faces Litigation Exposing Military Sexual Abuse Crisis
Posted by Tanya Domi in 
Advocacy Organization Joins In Support Of Class Action Lawsuit Against Pentagon Leaders Gates, Rumsfeld To Combat Military Rape, Sexual Assault
Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), a national advocacy organization devoted to eliminating sexual violence in the U.S. military, led by executive director and former Marine Corps Captain Anu Bhagwati, are joining in support of a lawsuit filed against Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for failure to make measurable progress and marked improvement to the Pentagon’s abysmal record that appears to tolerate sexual abuse and rape.
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of seventeen plaintiffs, including two men, was filed in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District in Virginia by Susan L. Burke, and announced at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. No stranger to controversy, Burke is also litigating another major lawsuit against Blackwater, LLC, in a whistleblower case on behalf of the U.S. government. Burke was joined today by Bhagwati, Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Fund, and some of the plaintiffs participating in the lawsuit, including twenty-five year-old Kori Cioca (video) who said she was hit in her face by a superior in 2005 and later raped by the same man while serving in the Coast Guard.
Also a plaintiff in the suit, Panayiota Bertzikis, twenty-nine, a former Coast Guard member who was raped by a shipmate while on a social hike off-duty in 2006. Bertzikis, now the executive director of the Military Rape Crisis Center in Somerville, Mass., spoke about the broader problem of not just the occurrence of rape, which is vastly under reported — even according to the Department of Defense — but about the larger issue, which is the manner in which the military as a whole deals with rape, after it is reported.
“The problem of rape in the military is not only service members getting raped, but it’s the entire way that the military as a whole is dealing with it,” said Bertzikis, who added, “From survivors having to be involuntarily discharged from service, the constant verbal abuse, once a survivor does come forward your entire unit is known to turn their back on you. The entire culture needs to be changed.”
Read: “Breaking: Pentagon Sued In Rape, Sexual Abuse Class-Action“
The AP reported this morning, “Bertzikis complained to her commanding officer, but she said authorities did not take substantial steps to investigate the matter. Instead, she said, they forced her to live on the same floor as the man she had accused and tolerated others calling her a “liar” and “whore.”
“Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a statement that sexual assault is a wider societal problem and that Gates has been working to ensure the military is doing all it can to prevent and respond to it.
“That means providing more money, personnel, training and expertise, including reaching out to other large institutions such as universities to learn best practices,” Morrell said. “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.”
Retaliation by hostile commanders is not an uncommon occurance according to a number of these plaintiffs. Retaliation can include constant verbal abuse, blackballing of a unit member if she reports she was raped and command instigation that led to compromised privacy of a survivor’s allegations of rape or sexual assault.
“I stand in solidarity with the courageous men and women who have served in our nation’s armed services,” Bhagwati said. “The inspirational plaintiffs you see before you are a small handful of the tens of thousands of troops and veterans who have been sexually brutalized and physically and psycholoigically tortured by their fellow servicemembers while defending our nation.”
According to Bhagwati, in FY 2009, 3,230 servicemembers reported rape or sexual assault through the military. The DoD itself acknowledges that 80 percent of sexual assault survivors do not report the crime. According to this mathematical formula, 16,150 servicemembers were sexually assaulted. Currently, the DoD’s small “Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office” (SAPRO), which distributes posters, collects data, but has no enforcement or investigative authority to stem the time of sexual violence.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’d like to add that I recently joined SWAN’s Board of Directors and jumped at the opportunity to support this ground breaking work, because SWAN is the first military veterans organization in the country to focus on the elimination of military rape and sexual abuse.
Along with its advocacy and policy work that includes working on the repeal of DADT, SWAN continues addressing homelessness among the veterans’ population which is substantially higher among women vets, who are also less likely to access the Veteran’s Administration for health care they maybe entitled to. Why go to a VA hospital or medical facility that caters to male diseases as these facilities are woefully inadequate or not properly staffed to treat women’s diseases? To add insult to injury, many women who are suffering PTSD from combat or military sexual violence related reasons, are many times sexually harassed in the hallways and sitting rooms of many VA facilities.
As a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Army, in which I began as a private and left as a captain, I can attest to the viciousness of many male colleagues. I know that many women soldiers, straight or lesbian, are vulnerable to a spectrum of harassment that begins with name-calling, escalates to a hostile work environment, and culminates in sexual assault.
GAO reports have documented the abysmal conditions that women cadets have endured at the military academies because of military sexual violence. In the most egregious cases, females have been raped in their own beds. The Pentagon leadership annually comes before Congress to tell our elected representatives, who possess oversight authority, that they will do better on the issue of reducing military rape. Many promises are made, nearly none fulfilled. Congress has done a miserable job carrying out its oversight function under both Democratic and Republican leadership.
Additionally, there has been little, if not neglible Presidential leadership on the issue of military rape and sexual assault during the history of our country, yet women have officially served in the ranks since World War II and are now serving in combat capacities in Afghanistan and Iraq, although not formally recognized.
If you are outraged by the epidemic of military rape and sexual assault that continues with impunity, show your concern by going to SWAN’s website to sign a petition directed to Secretary Gates and the leaders of the Pentagon to stop these crimes against some of the most dedicated American citizens.
Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.
Another abuse of position issue? I think so. It’s really a nightmare for the victims.
I and many millions nationwide are stalked, harassed and assaulted similar to honorable military women outlined in your report.
These assaults are done with “MILITARY STYLE” formation and victims (military and non military) described their assault emulated from military personnel who recklessly commit horrific crimes because they know the police and our senior military official rarely hold them accountable.
I and others nationwide have done many years of research and concluded; military men (in and out of service) are doing horrific crimes (rape, murder, child pedophile, steroids, drugs, fraud, etc.) as evidenced nationwide.
Many of these crimes go uninvestigated by local or military police that support their “Brotherhood of Men” and remain silent about the mental torture of millions of women nationally. Many wives of military/police personnel end up dead and families rarely get satisfaction from police who too, are committing crimes in similar military style particular to homeland security.
A conference of the “PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION FOR THE STUDY OF BIOETHICS” is to occur in Washington on Feb. 28, 2011. This is in response to millions of complaints of military style “Stalking and Misused Direct Energy Weapons” horrifically assaulting citizens nationwide in epidemic numbers. These military personnel are completely out of control.
It is all in the evidence that I would be happy to provide that has been gathered for five years and mimics the suit filed and your cause to help assaulted military women. It is not just military women they assault.
I and others nationwide are repeatedly petitioning the U.S. Justice Dept., Congress, Senate, FDLE, Police Depts., the Obama, Bush and Clinton Administrations and Florida’s Governor Rick Scott for “EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE” to hold senior homeland security personnel responsible for these military men doing “side jobs” of assault not authorized by anyone.
Many victims nationwide allege “SENIOR HOMELAND/MILITARY OFFICERS” (Military & Police) are “CONDONING HORRIFIC” illegal acts of “MILITARY STYLE” assaults with “MILITARY WEAPONS” while top officers “LACK” stopping or addressing horrific assaults (rape, direct energy weapons misuse, murder, etc.). Thereby condoning assaults while turning a blind eye to what is occurring.
This military suit is no different then Enron, Tyco or Wall Street where top officers (CEO, CFO) of the companies condoned fraud with their lack of stopping it. It was Ken Lay and other CEO’s held accountable for the fraud committed by junior staff. It is our senior military officers that should be held accountable for these out of control personnel.
I would like to join your group as I am as much a victim as those violently raped, then stalked and harassed when they dare speak of their assault. My case is of similar nature, well documented and ready for trial. I know I can prove it beyond any reasonable and help your cause.
Margaret
I’m feeling relieved, also enlightened further, also glad to have finally found this website information about something I “too” while serving in uniform back in 1966-67 in the Navy Wave’s, had happen to me “too”.
It was after listening to NPR earlier today when I was able to track down more information about how to get my name (I hope for atleast) onto the class-action lawsuit against the Pentegon; and now too I know just how very! un-alone in this kind of boat I’ve been for over 40 year’s now.
I do receive ptsd counseling help from the V.A. in Providence, R.I., only while it’s been helpful to have finally been able to be correctly diagnosed, and also receive counseling, I’ve also felt isolated, even as a Veteran; which I work-at resisting!!
I’ve heard (before) about why some, maybe many female Veteran’s haven’t accessed their benefit’s through the V.A., and after reading the infomation on your site, I can better understand why not; although for myself, it has been through filing claim’s with the V.A. which has been giving me atleast “a” way of telling “MY” story after many, many year’s of having pretty much no one to tell it to, or receive some help from either; not even after I was raped, injured as well, there was no resources of help back then, no one to talk to even, and so no help; and so I internalized it all and suffered in silence, and developed digestive system problem’s, and alot more health wise.
Today I have 70% disability from the V.A., with another claim pending which will consider bringing me up to 100%, and then I plan on requesting the Navy to change my discharge into a medical one (either way it’s still honorable, but how women are treated by the military’s now-a-day’s, is different in some way’s from how women back in the 1960′s were often being treated, which is called mis-treated at a minimum).
I know I’ll never get an applogy from the Navy, sooooo maybe yet with persistence I’ll know success changing my discharge into the medical one “would” be a victory, but still not an appology.
The V.A. in Provdence, R.I. atleast has been listening to me (with the great help’s and representation of the D.A.V. also in Providence); again, for myself filing claim’s and such with the V.A. became after many, many year’s of suffering alone, in silence, an opened up door to me I “could” walk through and when-ever I could “tell” MY story to, which as you know all about as well, is the story of sexual assault & rape attack’s of MANY service women, also some men as well, and it’s been going on for MANY year’s; the history of this all is all too! lengthy, and has not being written about, or not very extensively, nor reported about very often, well often “enough”, nor has the Pentegon done much about this matter which has seemed to me to be like a closely kept under their carpet’s “secret” and all the while rape’s, criminal assault’s continue don’t they, even as I type to you, we know that they are.
The history about this kind of American military’s “secret”, which is also an “elephant” in the Pentegon office’s isn’t it ?! was happening before I enlisted into the Navy Wave’s in 1966, and it’s been flourishing for many year’s ever since.
These kind’s military secret’s need’s to come out into the light of day, made public, and the Pentegon held accountable & also responsible at very long last; no more sweeping this serious matter under their office carpet’s, no more “good ole boy’s” crap either!
GOD BLESS your work, thank-you for reading a little bit about “MY” story, Sincerely, Charlene, NAVY VETERAN
Thank-You for letting tell MY story; also for allowing me to know I’ve “not” been all alone for many year’s after all.
Wish I’d double checked my typo’s, opps!
Although more importantly “MY” story, “MY” truth is out there, and hopefully it’ll be of benefit to other’s.
Thank-You for the HUGE GIFT of letting me become alot more aware of just how filled up this kind of boat I’ve been in “has” alway’s been.
God’s Many Blessing’s Always, Charlene, Navy Veteran