Stop the attacks
Gilly rips Army gen. over rise of sex assaults
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand roasted a top Army general over spiking sex assaults in the military, bluntly telling him to come up with a plan to stop the pervasive problem of rape faced by women in uniform.
The Democratic presidential candidate angrily told Army Gen. James McConville she is tired of being told that Army brass “get” the need to be tough on sex assault.
“You don’t have it!” Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) shouted at McConville during his confirmation hearing to be Army chief of staff. “You’re failing us.”
“I expect you to show strong leadership on this,” added Gillibrand, who has made sexual harassment and assault a key part of her White House campaign. “It is your responsibility to make sure the men and women who serve, who will sacrifice their lives for this country, are protected.”
Sex assault reports rose 13% last year to 20,000. But advocates say those numbers dramatically understate the problem because just a third of victims report sex assaults in the military.
Sen. Martha McSally (RAriz.) recently made headlines by recounting that she was raped by a superior officer during her storied 26year career as an Air Force pilot. She never reported the attack and declined to name her attacker. McConville said the Army saw a spike of more than 18% in the number of sexual assault reports filed last year. The Marine Corps had the largest jump, at 23%, while the Navy saw a 7% increase and the Air Force was up by about 4%. The Pentagon releases a report every year on the number of sexual assaults reported by troops.
But because sexual assault is a highly underreported crime, the department sends out an anonymous survey every two years to get a clearer picture of the problem.
Nate Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon’s sexual assault prevention and response office, told reporters Thursday that the latest numbers are “disheartening and it personally makes me angry,” but he said he’s “not without hope.”
The survey found that young and junior enlisted women between 17 and 20 were most likely to experience sexual assault.
In the vast majority of the cases the alleged perpetrator was a military man, often near the same rank as the victim and usually someone she knows.