A new report says that military service members who report sexual assault face a very high risk of retaliation, including threats, harassment, and loss of promotions and work opportunities. The report says military sexual assault survivors are twelve times more likely to be retaliated against than their attackers are likely to be convicted of a sexual offense, and accuses the Department of Defense of virtually ignoring the problem.
The report, which you can read in full here, was produced by Human Rights Watch and Protect Our Defenders, an organization that advocates for military sexual assault survivors. They spoke to more than 150 service members who have been sexually assaulted. The service members report being spat on, called names, threatened with demotion, and, even threatened with death by “friendly fire” if they’re deployed to a war zone. The stats are incredibly grim: more than half of the service members polled said they’d been retaliated against, while “virtually no one” was held responsible:
Military surveys indicate that most respondents—62 percent—who experienced unwanted sexual contact and reported it to a military authority faced retaliation as a result of reporting. In other words, military service members who reported sexual assault were 12 times more likely to suffer retaliation for doing so than to see their offender, if also a service member, convicted for a sex offense. Just 5 percent (175 out of 3,261) of sexual assault cases in the Defense Department’s jurisdiction investigated with a reportable outcome in FY 2014 led to a sex offense conviction.
The harassment is not subtle. One woman reported being called a “cum dumpster” who “lies about rape” on social media. From the report:
Service members described being threatened, harassed, and abused: one survivor sought safety in a hospital because colleagues told her she “better sleep light,” and disabled her car after she reported her assailant. Another was besieged with phone calls after members of her unit put notes on cars at the post exchange (the on-base store) saying “for a good time call” and her number. Another wrote that within six months of his report he had been “physically attacked twice and verbally belittled” by peers and non-commissioned officers.
Survivors can also quickly see their professional advancement blocked:
A high-achieving sergeant in the Air National Guard told Human Rights Watch that she was up for promotion when she reported a sexual assault that had occurred earlier in her career. Afterwards, a colleague told her a wing commander said, “Over my dead body will she get promoted now.” She lost her responsibility for training people and was demoted twice.
“Despite all those awards, I got nothing,” she said.
Many assault victims also feared reporting because they worried they’d be punished by their superiors for ““collateral misconduct,” like underage drinking or “adultery.” Even minor punishments could hurt their careers, HRW points out.