Sexual harassment in the military is unwanted sexual behaviour experienced as threatening, offensive, or otherwise upsetting, which occurs in a military setting. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Sexual harassment is more common in military than civilian life. [3] [6] Military women and men experience unwanted behaviours disproportionately, [3] [4] [7] [8] [9] [10] particularly younger women and girls. [4] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Other groups at high risk include partners of personnel, child cadets, and military detainees.
Risk factors characteristic of a military setting include the young average age of personnel, isolated workplaces, the minority status of women, hierarchical power relationships, a culture of conformity, the predominance of traditionally masculine values and behaviours, and a heavy drinking culture. [4] [10] [16] [17] [18] Harassment is particularly common in certain settings, notably centres for initial military training [1] [19] [20] [21] [22] and theatres of war. [10] [23] [24]
Experience of harassment can be traumatic. It increases the risk of stress-related mental illness, [10] particularly post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). [6] Nonetheless, typically most of those targeted choose not to raise a formal complaint, expecting repercussions if they do. [3] [4] [7] [9] [12] [13] [25] [26]
Despite the development of prevention programmes in recent years, official statistics in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States report increasing rates of sexual harassment in the military. [4] [10] [7] [8] [9] [15]
Sexual harassment is unwanted sexual behaviour experienced as threatening or otherwise upsetting. [2] [3] [4] [5] Definitions in use by state armed forces include:
Sexual harassment in the military includes a broad spectrum of behaviour.
Undirected behaviours are those not personally targeted but which affect the working environment, such as sexist and sexual jokes and the prominent display of pornographic material.
Directed behaviours target one or more individuals, such as hazing rituals, unwanted sexual advances, and sexual assault. [12]
Research in Canada has found that a military culture of undirected sexual harassment increases the risk of directed sexual harassment and assault. [4]
A woman in the British army told researchers in 2006:
A friend was out on an exercise when a group of men ducked her head in a bucket of water and each time she came up for breath she had to repeat "I am useless and I am a female". She told the story and said it was a joke but I could see she was upset. [12]
The Deschamps Review of 2015 found pervasive demeaning attitudes to women in the Canadian armed forces:
Interviewees reported regularly being told of orders to "stop being pussies" and to "leave your purses at home" [...] The use of the word "cunt", for example, is commonplace, and rape jokes are tolerated. [...] A commonly held attitude is that, rather than be a soldier, a sailor or an aviator, a woman will be labeled an "ice princess", a "bitch", or a "slut". Another saying is that women enter the CAF "to find a man, to leave a man, or to become a man". [4]
A woman in the French army was raped by her commanding officer:
It was months before I could pronounce the word "rape"... I blamed myself. I said: "We are trained in hand to hand combat. Why didn't I stop him?" But when that happens you are terrorised. [13]
Many incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the US armed forces have been documented. For example:
When a woman in the US army attended a sexual harassment awareness training, the senior officer teaching the class asked participants whether they would hit on "a naked, drunk girl on the bench outside your barracks", adding, "you're not supposed to but I probably would". [27]
US Senator Martha McSally, formerly of the US Air Force and the first female pilot to fly combat operations, testified to a Senate meeting that she was raped by a superior officer. [28] McSally explained that she never reported the incident for lack of trust in the military justice system. She added that she blamed herself, and that although she had thought herself strong, she felt powerless. [29]
The US Navy Tailhook Association scandal exposed multiple acts of sexual violence during the organisation's annual convention of aviators in Las Vegas. Lieutenant Paula Puopolo (then Coughlin) blew the whistle on a run-the-gauntlet ritual, in which male officers lined the third-floor corridor of the convention hotel to harass and assault women passing through. In 1991, the men sexually assaulted 83 women, including Puopolo, and seven men. [30] As reported in the Wall Street Journal :
Puopolo says up to 200 disheveled airmen set upon her. She was fondled and passed along from one groping, pinching set of hands to another before being dropped to the ground. At breakfast, Puopolo reported the incident to [Rear Admiral] Snyder, himself a former president of the association. "He said that's what you get when you go down a hallway full of drunken aviators," she recalls. [31]
While some male personnel are sexually harassed, women are much more likely to be targeted. [10] [4] [3] [7] [8] [9]
Younger women and girls face a greater risk, according to American, British, Canadian, and French research. [11] [12] [4] [13] [14] [15] For example, girls aged under 18 in the British armed forces were ten times as likely as adult female personnel to be the victim of a sexual offence in 2021. [14]
In 2022, research in the UK armed forces found that experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), a category that includes sexual abuse, was three times more prevalent among partners of military personnel than among partners of civilians. [23] 10% of male and 7% of female personnel told the researchers they had abused their partner in the previous 12 months. The study found that physical and sexual abuse of partners was particularly common where personnel had traumatic experiences of war.
In the US armed forces, estimates of the sexual abuse of military partners indicate a similarly high rate of annual incidence, ranging from 12% to 40%. [32]
Cadet forces, common worldwide, are military youth organisations in communities and schools. [33] [34] [35] [36] Some evidence from the UK, where hundreds of complaints of the sexual abuse of cadets have been recorded since 2012, and from Canada, where one in ten complaints of sexual assault in the military are from the cadet organisations, indicate that these institutions are susceptible to a culture of sexual harassment. [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]
Individuals detained by militaries are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment. During the Iraq War, for example, personnel of the U.S. Army and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) committed multiple human rights violations against detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, [42] including rape, sodomy, and other forms of sexual abuse. [43] [44] [45] Similarly, two Iraqi men detained on a Coalition warship at the start of the war were made to strip naked and were sexually humiliated. [46]
While prevalence varies by country, military branch, and other factors, official statistics and peer-reviewed research from Canada, France, the UK, and the US indicate that between a quarter and a third of military women in these countries are sexually harassed at work at least once each year. [47] [48] [49] [50]
Military training settings are characterised by a particularly high level of sexual harassment and assault relative to both the civilian population and other military settings. [50] [51] [20] [52] [21]
Research further shows an increase in perpetration during and after deployment on military operations. [10] [23] [24]
Studies of sexual harassment have found that it is markedly more common in military than civilian settings [23] [47] [6] For example, between 2015 and 2020, girls aged 16 or 17 in the British armed forces were twice as likely as their same-age civilian peers to report rape or other sexual assault. [15]
Several reasons for a high prevalence of sexual harassment in the military have been suggested.
A Canadian study has found that key risk factors associated with military settings are the typically young age of personnel, the isolated locations of bases, the minority status of women, and the disproportionate number of men in senior positions. [10]
An emphasis in military organisations on conformity, obedience, and hierarchical power relations, combine to increase the risk, particularly to personnel of low rank, who are less able than others to resist inappropriate expectations made of them. [4]
Traditionally masculine values and behaviours that are rewarded and reinforced in military settings are also thought to play a role. [53] [16] [54] [4] [17]
In the UK, the 2019 Wigston Review into inappropriate sexual behaviours in the armed forces reported that several military factors contributed to risk: "tight-knit units that perceive themselves as 'elite'; masculine cultures with low gender diversity; rank gradients; age gradients; weak or absent controls, especially after extensive operational periods; and alcohol." [18]
Women affected by sexual harassment are more likely than other women to suffer stress-related mental illness afterwards. [10]
Research in the US found that when sexual abuse of female military personnel was psychiatrically traumatic, the odds of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment on operations increased by a factor of nine, [6] and the odds of suicide more than doubled. [55]
Research in the US has found that personnel affected by sexual harassment are somewhat less likely to develop depression or PTSD if a formal report leads to effective action to address the issue. [56]
The military leadership in some countries has begun to acknowledge a culture of sexual misconduct among personnel. For example:
Since the number of official complaints represents only a fraction of sexual harassment incidence, armed forces committed to reducing prevalence produce periodic estimates of its true extent by means of anonymised surveys. [3] [8]
Other prevention initiatives, varying by country, include bystander and diversity training, and helplines. [9] [50] Despite these steps, official statistics in Canada, the UK, and the US over the last decade show high and increasing rates of harassment. [47] [49] [50]
Military personnel are frequently reluctant to report incidents of sexual misconduct: [3] [4] [12] [13] [25] [26] [7] [9]
Widespread reports of sexual harassment in the Australian armed forces led to the establishment of the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce to investigate complaints from women between 1991 and 2011. It received 2,439 complaints, of which it deemed 1,751 to be plausible. [25]
A Royal Commission into institutional child sexual abuse was established in 2012, which investigated widespread allegations of historical abuse in the navy. [1] The Commission took evidence from 8,000 individuals [61] and reported in 2017 that many recruits of both sexes and from the age of 15 had been repeatedly sexually abused by older recruits between 1967 and 1971, including by anal gang rape, and in some cases young recruits had been forced to rape each other. [1] The practice was "tolerated" by senior staff, according to the Commission. [62]
In 2014, the ombudsman of the Canadian armed forces described sexual harassment in the institution as "'a huge problem"'. [41]
In 2015, after widespread allegations of sexual misconduct in the military, a major official report, the External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces (the Deschamps Review), was published. [4] It found that sexual harassment was commonplace and embedded in military culture, and that pervasive degrading attitudes to women and LGBTQ+ personnel were jeopardising their safety. [4] The Deschamps Review also criticised the armed forces for a culture of dismissiveness; [4] one male interviewee told the Review, for example: "Girls that come to the Army know what to expect." The Review stated that senior NCOs are frequently seen as tolerating sexual harassment and discouraging the individuals affected from making a complaint. [4]
The Canadian Armed Forces have since conducted major surveys of personnel in 2016 and 2018. In each instance, the following proportions of female personnel reported being personally targeted by sexualised or discriminatory behaviour in the previous 12 months: [49]
In 2022, a further major report, the Arbour Review, concluded that female armed forces personnel were more likely to be attacked by their peers than the enemy. [63]
Higher rates of harassment have been identified in military training centres. The rate of sexual harassment of women at military colleges in Canada was found in 2019 to be approximately twice (28%) that found in civilian colleges (15%). [51] According to the Arbour Review, training centres are characterised by a "hostile environment and mistreatment of many female cadets", including the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean which trains new recruits from age 16. [19]
A notable case of a perpetrator is that of Russell Williams, a colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force, who was charged with the sexual assault of two women in connection with two home invasions near Tweed, Ontario in September 2009. Williams was also charged in the death of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old military traffic technician, who had been found dead at home in late November 2009. [64] He was sentenced in 2010 to two concurrent terms of life imprisonment.
The extent of sexual harassment in the French armed forces first came to prominence in 2014 when 35 cases of harassment and assault were detailed in La Guerre Invisible, a book by Leila Minano and Julia Pascual. [7] According to the Independent newspaper, the armed forces had not been required to report incidents or to keep statistics, and an official report acknowledged that awareness of the problem had been institutionally suppressed. [13]
A study in 2021 found that 37% of women and 18% of men in a representative sample from the French military had experienced verbal or physical sexual harassment in the previous 12 months, and that 13% of women and 4% of men had been sexually assaulted. [48] The incidence rates of sexual harassment and sexual assault experienced by women aged under 25 were particularly high, at 41% and 21% respectively. 22% of women of the lowest rank, who are typically those who have recently enlisted, said they had been sexually assaulted.
In 2014, the German armed forces reported that 55% of female and 12% of male personnel had experienced sexual harassment during their career, and that 3% of women said they had been sexually assaulted or raped. [65]
There have been several reports of sexual assaults in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). [66]
In 2021, the Armed Forces Research Institute found that 46% of all military women, 63% of women under 30, and 73% of new female recruits had experienced sexual harassment at least once in the previous 12 months. [22]
Following concerns expressed in 2004 by the UK Equal Opportunities Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights Commission) about persistent sexual harassment in the British armed forces, [12] a number of anonymised, official surveys have been undertaken. The first, in 2006, found that a male-dominated culture sexualised women and diminished their military competence. [12] Among the comments made to researchers by male personnel about their female counterparts were: "Ok there are a few exceptions but on the whole they [women] shouldn't be here"; "They're all lesbians or sluts"; and "They are emotionally unstable." [12] The report found that 15% of women had had a 'particularly upsetting' experience of sexual harassment in the previous 12 months; the proportion rose to 20% in the youngest age group. [12]
Since 2009, official surveys asking the same question have found steadily rising rates of women in the army reporting particularly upsetting experiences, as follows:
In 2021, the same question asked of women in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force found rates of 43% and 35%, respectively. [68] [69]
In 2021, 37 girls aged under 18 across the British armed forces (from a total population at the time of 290) were victims of a sexual offence. [20] 22 were new recruits at the training centre for the army's youngest recruits (aged from 16 years), the Army Foundation College; [20] three of the accused in these cases were members of staff. [52]
In 2017, a BBC Panorama documentary found multiple cases of the sexual abuse of cadets from age 11 during the 1980s. [37] It reported that the victims and their parents were discouraged from making a formal complaint or contacting the police. In 2012 and 2013, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) paid £2 million to settle the allegations out of court. [38] Between 2012 and 2017, the MOD recorded a further 363 allegations, of which 282 were referred to the police. [39]
Since 2014, surveys of US military personnel have found a high prevalence of sexual harassment. The following rates refer to the proportion of women reporting that they had experienced harassment in the previous 12 months. [50]
In the same years, 5–6% of servicewomen said they had been sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months; rates at initial training centres were found to be substantially higher. [50]
In 2017, the Department of Defense reported that an estimated 14,900 military personnel were sexually assaulted in 2016, [8] of whom 6,172 made an official complaint. [60]
In the same year, the Department reported that an active duty military woman who reported sexual harassment to a superior was 16% more likely to be sexually assaulted than one who did not report, while a man who reported increased his chance of sexual assault thereafter by 50%. [70]
The Canadian Armed Forces are the unified military forces of Canada, including land, sea, and air commands referred to as the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force. The CAF also operates several other commands, including the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, the Canadian Joint Operations Command, and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. Personnel may belong to either the Regular Force or the Reserve Force, which has four sub-components: the Primary Reserve, Supplementary Reserve, Cadet Organizations Administration and Training Service, and the Canadian Rangers. Under the National Defence Act, the Canadian Armed Forces are an entity separate and distinct from the Department of National Defence, which also exists as the civilian support system for the forces.
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment can be physical and/or a demand or request for sexual favors, making sexually colored remarks, showing pornography, and any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions. Harassers or victims can be of any gender.
Sexual misconduct is misconduct of a sexual nature which exists on a spectrum that may include a broad range of sexual behaviors considered unwelcome. This includes conduct considered inappropriate on an individual or societal basis of morality, sexual harassment and/or criminal sexual assault.
The Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal in 2003 involved allegations of sexual assault at the United States Air Force Academy, as well as allegations that the alleged incidents had been ignored by the academy's leadership.
Sexual assault in the United States armed forces is an ongoing issue which has received extensive media coverage in the past. A 2012 Pentagon survey found that approximately 26,000 women and men were sexually assaulted that year; of those, only 3,374 cases were reported. In 2013, a new Pentagon report found that 5,061 troops reported cases of assault. Of the reported cases, only 484 cases went to trial; 376 resulted in convictions. Another investigation found that one in five women in the United States Air Force who were sexually assaulted by service members reported it, for one in 15 men.
Women have been serving in the military since the inception of organized warfare, in both combat and non-combat roles. Their inclusion in combat missions has increased in recent decades, often serving as pilots, mechanics, and infantry officers.
Counter-recruitment refers to activity opposing military recruitment, in some or all of its forms. Among the methods used are research, consciousness-raising, political advocacy and direct action. Most such activity is a response to recruitment by state armed forces, but may also target intelligence agencies, private military companies, and non-state armed groups.
Military recruitment refers to the activity of attracting people to, and selecting them for, military training and employment.
The Army Foundation College (AFC) in Harrogate, England, is the sole initial military training unit for British Army recruits who enlist aged between 16 and 17.5 years.
Sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces has been a pervasive issue affecting women, youth, and men in the Canadian Forces and Canadian Cadet Organizations. Canadian Forces sexual assault cases have been extensively reported in national Canadian news media. The scope and depth of the sexual assault problem first came to light in 1998, when Maclean's magazine broke the story. Individual cases continued to be reported. The issue became a national focus again when MacLean's magazine published another exposé exploring the extent of rape culture in Canada's military.
After a sexual assault or rape, victims are often subjected to scrutiny and, in some cases, mistreatment. Victims undergo medical examinations and are interviewed by police. If there is a criminal trial, victims suffer a loss of privacy, and their credibility may be challenged. Victims may also become the target of slut-shaming, abuse, social stigmatization, sexual slurs and cyberbullying. These factors, contributing to a rape culture, are among some of the reasons that may contribute up to 80% of all rapes going unreported in the U.S, according to a 2016 study done by the U.S. Department of Justice.
#MeToo was a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape culture, in which women publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. The hashtag #MeToo was used starting in 2017 as a way to draw attention to the magnitude of the problem. "Me Too" is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating how many have experienced sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
The Weinstein effect is a trend in which men and women come forward to accuse other famous or powerful men and women of sexual abuse, harassment or misconduct. The term Weinstein effect came into use in October 2017, when media outlets began reporting on alleged sexual abuse against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
SHARP is a proactive U.S. Army program which aims to end sexual harassment and assault in the service. Sexual harassment is a crime in the armed forces, under the UCMJ Article 134 by executive order on 26 January 2022. Those accused of a crime such as sexual harassment, or assault are subject to the UCMJ. Victims of such crimes are protected from disciplinary action, or prosecution by Army Directive as of 2022. A Special Trial Counsel, part of the Judge Advocate General's Corps has been established to combat harmful behaviors, in order to conduct independent prosecutions.
This overview shows the regulations regarding military service of non-heterosexuals around the world.
Sexual abuse by yoga gurus is the exploitation of the position of trust occupied by a master of any branch of yoga for personal sexual pleasure. Allegations of such abuse have been made against modern yoga gurus such as Bikram Choudhury, Kausthub Desikachar, Yogi Bhajan, Amrit Desai, and K. Pattabhi Jois. There have been some criminal convictions and lawsuits for civil damages.
The #MeToo movementin Pakistan is modeled after the international #MeToo movement and began in late 2018 in Pakistani society. It has been used as a springboard to stimulate a more inclusive, organic movement, adapted to local settings, and has aimed to reach all sectors, including the lowest rungs of society.
Major Sandra Marie Perron is a former Canadian Army officer. She was the first female infantry officer in the Canadian Army. Perron served in the infantry from 1991 to 1996, completing two tours of duty in Yugoslavia. While in the Army she was subjected to sexual harassment and "excessively rough" training.
Trevor John Cadieu is a retired senior Canadian military officer. He reached the rank of lieutenant general and was slated to become army commander, but released from the military following allegations of sexual misconduct almost 30 years before, and after months of delay in court proceedings. Cadieu maintained the allegations were false but needed to be investigated thoroughly to expose the truth. In 2022, he travelled to Ukraine to join the fight against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In October 2023, the charges were stayed by an Ontario judge, ruling that unreasonable delays by military police to disclose information to Cadieu and another accused party led to unreasonable delay in the trial.
Sexual misconduct in the British military is unwanted sexual behaviour occurring in military organisations of the United Kingdom, including verbal and physical harassment, assault, and rape.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers "severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and 'acting inappropriately with a dead body.' The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys."
The paper quoted Taguba as saying, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency." [...] The actual quote in the Telegraph was accurate, Taguba said – but he was referring to the hundreds of images he reviewed as an investigator of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
Taguba said that he saw "a video of a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee"
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)