What Can Be Done to Stop It From Closing Again

At a congressional hearing earlier this twelvemonth on the military'southward response to sexual assail, Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., revealed that she was raped by a superior officeholder during her time serving in the Air Force. Similar to many fellow service members who shared the same experience, she chose not to report information technology.

"Similar and then many women and men, I didn't trust the system at the time," said McSally at the hearing. "I blamed myself. I was ashamed and confused. I thought I was stiff simply felt powerless. The perpetrators abused their position of power in profound means."

When she chose to disclose afterward in her armed forces career, the responses she received were wholly inadequate. In fact, she said that she "felt like the arrangement was raping [her] all over again."

Years take passed since McSally retired from the Air Strength in 2010, and the military has taken some action to address the upshot of sexual assail. Created by the Department of Defence force, a Sexual Set on Accountability and Investigation Task Force reviewed how the military handles sexual assault and offered a number of recommendations to protect and support survivors (PDF, 558 KB).

Simply a 2019 Pentagon report on sexual assault in the military ranks illuminated just how prevalent the problem remains. In 2018, approximately 20,500 service members experienced sexual attack in the war machine, about a 38% increment since 2016.

To shed lite on why sexual assault remains a trouble inside the armed forces, the MSW@USC saturday down with Sara Kintzle, an associate enquiry professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck Schoolhouse of Social Work's Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families. Kintzle has not only done all-encompassing research on sexual attack within the military but also works on prevention efforts and skills trainings for service members.

"There has been a culture shift within the military, with a pretty potent effort to recognize that sexual assault is something that happens, that there are factors within the military that make people vulnerable to experiencing sexual assault, and that more needs to be washed to address those bug and to support people who report," Kintzle said.

How Prevalent Is Armed forces Sexual Assault?

Armed services sexual assault affects service members of all ages, genders, sexualities and ranks. Approximately half-dozen.2% of agile duty women and 0.7% of active duty men ages 17 to 24 experienced sexual assault in 2018. The aforementioned Pentagon report indicates that the majority of sexual assaults in 2018 occurred betwixt people ages 17 to 24 who work, railroad train or live in close proximity to each other. Female service members reported that offenders were most often friends or acquaintances.

Approximately twenty,500 service members experienced sexual attack in 2018, comprising 6.2% of female service members and 0.7% of male service members.

Go to the bottom of the page for a tabular version of data regarding the number of service members who experienced sexual assault in the past year and the differences in prevalence between genders.

Service members who are young, just entering their first duty station, or being transferred to a new duty station are especially vulnerable, said Kintzle.

"Those are the times when you don't know a lot of people, when you're new to the unit," she said. "Those are times when you're really shaping your views about the culture of the military."

One positive finding from the Pentagon report is the uptick in reporting. During the past decade, reporting rates have quadrupled. In 2018, approximately i-tertiary of those estimated to have experienced sexual assault reported the incident, though the rate for active duty men (17%) significantly lags behind that of active duty women (37%).

The total number of reports of sexual assault filed past service members has increased from ii,340 in fiscal year 2008 to half dozen,053 in fiscal year 2018.

Go to the bottom of the page for a tabular version of information regarding reports of sexual assault filed past service members.

How Can Armed services Sexual Set on Touch Service Members' Health?

Kintzle and her colleagues published a study in 2017 that details the effects of military sexual attack on physical and psychological wellness. Challenges that people who have experienced sexual set on can face as a upshot of sexual trauma include only are not limited to:

• Chronic pain
• Chronic fatigue
• Headaches
• Gastrointestinal symptoms
• Eating disorders
• Depression
• Dissociative disorder
• Substance misuse
• Panic disorder
• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Sexual assault trauma can have brusque- and long-term furnishings. Compared to civilians, those who experience armed forces sexual assault may be less able to take fourth dimension off or away from piece of work to process their trauma. They may also be forced to relive their trauma when continuing to alive and work alongside their assailant. If adult, psychological and emotional issues tin bear upon a person's power to perform physically and maintain full employment, reducing overall quality of life.

These issues can as well develop years afterward the incident has occurred and the service member has separated from the military.

"For some women who were in the military 20, xxx, or xl years ago, they talk about being sexually assaulted and waking up the next mean solar day and just trying to move on with their lives," Kintzle said. "It wasn't until they got out of the war machine, or when they got married and had children that, all suddenly, the emotions and everything they pushed away came back into their lives and caused a lot of pain and discomfort."

To ensure people receive timely and appropriate care then they can address their experience and cope with what has happened, the military will need to acknowledge the psychological touch of sexual attack. In another report on mental health care utilization in female veterans who have experienced sexual trauma, Kintzle and colleagues establish a number of barriers to getting intendance including avoidance, stigma, lack of availability of gender-sensitive care, poor relationship with the military organisation and concerns about the effect on one's career. Men who have experienced sexual set on can encounter fifty-fifty greater stigma from leadership who choose to avert the issue.

What Role Does Military Culture Play in Military Sexual Assault?

In a split up review commodity regarding the circuitous dynamics of armed forces sexual assault, Kintzle and her co-authors delve into the root causes and cultural factors within the military that make this problem so difficult to accost. The root causes for military sexual assail mirror those of sexual assaults amidst civilians but may be exacerbated by military culture.

1 root cause identified by Kintzle and colleagues is gender stereotypes. The patriarchal structure of the armed services and the accent placed on masculine ideals may encourage notions of potency, aggression, self-sufficiency and risk taking. When added to power differentials between men and women in the war machine and a culture of homophobia, this tin lead to hyper-masculine men who choose to prove their masculinity through the use of sexual language and behavior. The authors note that hyper-masculinity tin can likewise become dangerous when combined with a sense of entitlement to sex activity. Soldiers sometimes larn to limit their empathy in order to complete gainsay duties and could potentially apply that to beau service members, making it easier to perpetrate sexual assault.

Some other cause that the authors identify is cultural credence. Like civilians who have experienced sexual attack, many of those in the military do not seek help or report sexual set on because they fright nothing will be washed. They may face blame, invasions of privacy, incredulous questioning and even retaliation, all of which can cause secondary victimization.

43%

of women who were assaulted and fabricated a written report said the experience of reporting was negative.

21%

said the experience of reporting was negative and they were met with attempts to deter them.

Source: Sexual Set on Prevention and Response Office. (2019, May two). "Financial Yr 2018 Annual Study on Sexual Set on in the Military." Department of Defense force.

All the same, dissimilar the root causes, at that place are cultural factors that are specific to the military that contribute to sexual assault and underreporting, such as unit of measurement cohesion.

"Reporting a sexual assault can feel similar a betrayal to their unit of measurement," Kintzle said. "They can feel like they're going to crusade trouble and disrupt the cohesion and the morale of their group, and so that adds a level of conflict to the state of affairs that you lot might not have in other situations where yous are reporting sexual assail."

Factors in War machine Culture That Influence Sexual Assail and Reporting

Value on operation:Leaders may minimize or dismiss claims against high performers equally a upshot of the value placed on private and squad performance.

Problem resolution at the lowest level: Service members are expected to resolve conflicts between themselves, which tin consequence in harassment and assail going unreported.

Movement of military personnel: Movement of personnel is essential for professional evolution but allows perpetrators to take advantage of others who are new to the unit.

Squad allegiance: Reporting a team member can be seen every bit a form of team betrayal. Other squad members may experience that reporting is unnecessarily making a large deal.

Leadership responsibility:When reports are fabricated, leaders may feel that they will exist blamed for allowing such an environs to exist. They may not want to human action on incidents.

Military reporting organisation:Reporting is a complicated procedure. While service members can choose to study privately, that confidentiality can be difficult to maintain.

Military machine resilience building programs: Service members are trained to cope in stressful situations. This emphasis on resilience may actually prevent people from getting help.

Prior restrictions on job assignments:For many years, women were restricted from positions that led to promotion, sending the bulletin that they were not every bit valuable equally men.

Emphasis on preparation:All service members receive the same prevention training, just everyone is not at equal risk all the time. The trainings lack wellness run a risk reduction strategies.

Living arrangements: Coed dormitories and barracks are loftier-adventure areas. Pregnant efforts should be undertaken to heighten the safety of the occupants.

Military legal arrangement:Diverse rules brand convictions difficult. Former policies allowed armed forces performance of the perpetrator and the lifestyle of their victim to be considered as testify.

What Can Be Done to Address Military Sexual Assault?

Kintzle and her co-authors provide a number of recommendations for how to address the problem of sexual assault in the armed forces:

1. Agree leadership accountable. Leaders at all levels are responsible for creating a good for you climate and should be monitored to ensure that they are not minimizing claims or retaliating.
2. Improve the reporting arrangement. The war machine should create a single database that maintains all accusations of assail likewise as harassment and stalking to identify serial predators. All individuals who see an incident should exist held accountable for reporting it, just the person who experienced the set on should be the only person deciding whether to file a formal report.
3. Modify existing laws to prevent assault. Certain laws should be reviewed to determine if they actually create barriers to reporting or are used every bit retaliation against those who report.
4. Provide increased back up for survivors. The medical treatment protocol may be insufficient, and those who feel assault may need long-term care that addresses psychological problems and other concerns related to transitioning out of the military.
5. Better sexual set on prevention skill training. These trainings should focus on psychoeducation and risk-reduction skills, with special attention paid to addressing root causes and cultural factors in the armed services.

Kintzle has helped to develop a sexual set on prevention program that has been pilot tested at several army bases throughout the United States. The program focuses on skills preparation and education, homing in on specific moments when service members are most vulnerable to sexual assault, such as when they transfer to a new duty station. Training for a adult female entering her beginning duty station would be focused on what her specific armed forces experience is going to exist like and how she can protect herself.

"That does not mean that if sexual assault does occur that they are to blame, but we want to requite people all the tools they need to subtract susceptibility every bit much every bit possible," Kintzle explained.

A leader, on the other mitt, may receive grooming that focuses more than on what to practice if someone discloses sexual assault. The training might embrace questions similar: How exercise I react in the right way? What do I say? How do I show someone who claims sexual attack that I believe them?

These trainings are designed to assist service members speak out when they see or experience something that makes them feel uncomfortable. Rather than only learning about what constitutes assail and how to report, service members are active participants in the chat and can share what they think is and isn't appropriate and how they would handle the state of affairs.

The overarching goal is to modify the culture of the military to ensure that those who experience sexual attack feel supported.

"Someone who discloses sexual assault and feels that they're believed, that what happened to them is validated, and that their emotions and reaction to it are valid is going to have a very dissimilar feel than somebody who is questioned," Kintzle said. "Those things can really impact the trajectory of how someone heals after a sexual assault."

The post-obit section includes tabular data from the graphic in this mail service.

Sexual Assault in the Military

Estimated Number of Service Members who Experienced Sexual Assault in the Past Year

Past Year Prevalence of Sexual Set on

Source: Sexual Set on Prevention and Response Office. (2019, May 2). "Financial Year 2018 Annual Written report on Sexual Assail in the War machine." Department of Defense.

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Sexual Assault Reporting in the Military machine

Number of Sexual Assaults Reported past Service Members for Incidents That Occurred During Military Service

Source: Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. (2019, May 2). "Financial Year 2018 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military." Department of Defense.

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Citation for this content: The MSW@USC, the online Primary of Social Work program at the University of Southern California.

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Source: https://msw.usc.edu/mswusc-blog/military-sexual-assault-prevalence-prevention/

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