The Department of Defense is leaning on new policies as the solution to the problem of sexual assault in the military, which has hit a record high for female troops.
They estimate that roughly 35,875 active-duty service members were forced into unwanted sexual contact. Approximately 19,250 of them were female and 16,600 were male, according to the 2021 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, which the Pentagon released on Thursday. Roughly 8.4% of all female service members and 1.5% of male service members were the victims of such incidents, and the figure for women is the highest since the department started tracking these statistics in 2006.
WOMEN IN MILITARY REPORT HIGHEST SEXUAL ASSAULT TOTALS SINCE TRACKING BEGAN IN 2006
Various defense officials briefed reporters about the “significant increase in sexual assault prevalence,” though they repeatedly brought up Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s approval of many of the recommendations provided by the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault.
One of those recommendations is the hiring of specialized professionals tasked with preventing the assaults.
“We have been sprinting over the past several months to implement the IRC recommendation to establish the full-time, dedicated, specialized professional workforce,” Andra Tharp, the senior prevention adviser with the Office of Force Resiliency, said. “We have developed strategy and policy, we are doing targeted outreach to ensure we get the right talent in these critical positions, and over the past several months, the department has initiated hiring the first 400 of these prevention professionals and will continue hiring over 2,000 in the coming years.”
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told reporters last September that the first set of the military-wide sexual assault-related policy changes would not be fully completed until 2027.
The policy changes to address the problem come as trust in the military to handle these cases is plummeting. Of the female service members who participated in the 2021 survey, only 34% of women said they agree or strongly agree with the statement that they can trust the military to protect their privacy, which is down from 63% in 2018 (the last time the survey was conducted), though that percentage had remained relatively steady for the previous near-decade.
Forty percent of women trust the military to ensure their safety, which is down from 69% in 2018, while only 39% expect the military to treat them with dignity and respect, which is down from 66%.
Jackie Speier (D-CA), the chairwoman of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee and a big advocate on the issue, said in a statement that the increased number of assaults and the decrease in trust show that the military is heading in the “wrong trajectory.”
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“The adjustment in how the data is gathered appears to confirm what survivors and advocates been saying for years: The reality is far more grim than the report numbers have suggested. The decline in the reporting rate also suggests trust and faith in the military is on the wrong trajectory,” the congresswoman said, adding that she intends to hold hearings on the problem.
Speier also referenced last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which included provisions to change the way the military handles sexual assault, though its fiercest advocates have said it didn’t go far enough.
