Press TV – May 9, 2013
A new report by the US Defense Department, Pentagon, says almost three rapes occur every hour in the US military, raising serious concern about the soaring rate of sexual assault among US servicemen.
According to the Pentagon, sexual assaults in the military have increased to the alarming level of 70 per day or three every hour, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The report added that 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012, a 35-percent increase since 2010 when 19,000 such cases were reported.
However, the overall rate of sexual assault in the US military may be higher, as many victims fail to report out of fear of vengeance or lack of justice under the military’s system of prosecution, the report added.
“The more closed and hierarchical an institution is, the more the victim is stigmatized and the rapist gets away with it,” said Susan Brooks, pastor and volunteer rape crisis counselor.
Brooks went on to condemn the US military for maintaining a culture of gender and power relations, which she says produces the rape culture among service members.
Many high-ranking US military commanders have recently been convicted and relieved of duties for multiple sexual offenses and corruption over the years.
On May 6, authorities said Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Krusinski, director of the sexual assault prevention program for the US Air Force, has himself been detained for sexually assaulting a woman not far from the military headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
In 2012, over 30 male Air Force boot camp trainers were cited for sexually harassing, abusing and raping at least 59 military recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.