Rapes, sexual harassment take toll on women in military

[flashl]

YORK, Pa. — It took Diane Pickel Plappert six months to tell a counselor that she had been raped while on duty in Iraq. While time passed, the former Navy nurse disconnected from her children and her life slowly unraveled.

Carolyn Schapper says she was harassed in Iraq by a fellow Army National Guard soldier to the extent that she began changing clothes in the shower for fear he’d barge into her room unannounced — as he already had on several occasions.

Even as women distinguish themselves in battle alongside men, they’re fighting off sexual assault and harassment. It’s not a new consequence of war. But the sheer number of women serving today — more than 190,000 so far in Iraq and Afghanistan — is forcing the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to more aggressively address it.

The data that exists — incomplete and not up-to-date — offers no proof that women in the war zones are more vulnerable to sexual assault than other female service members, or American women in general. But in an era when the military relies on women for invaluable and difficult front-line duties, the threat to their morale, performance and long-term well-being is starkly clear.

Sun Times

[elehhhhna]

1. the murders don't help, either

is it me or are there new ones every week?

[China_cat]

2. Of course there's no data on it.

Few women in the military will report rape or sexual harassment because they're the ones who will end up with a reduction in rank and/or pay, charges being brought or even a dishonorable discharge.

And an even smaller percentage of the assaults that do get reported are taken seriously by the people who are supposed to be protecting our military rank and file.

Death in battle or, more common for women, death from dehydration because they don't dare use the latrines after dark so they stop drinking anything.