USA TODAY International Edition
Peace Corps failed us, volunteers say
More Peace Corps volunteers report being sexually assaulted. They say a lack of support for victims and an apparent disregard for their safety are a betrayal of trust.
They wanted to make the world a better place and saw the Peace Corps as the way to do it. But the agency betrayed their trust.
A USA TODAY investigation found that Peace Corps officials are failing to manage the threat of sexual assault against volunteers. Rapes and forceful sexual assaults disclosed by volunteers at the end of their service nearly doubled from 2015 to 2019. A dozen women who said they were sexually assaulted described how officials placed them in dangerous situations, misrepresented their assaults in agency records and violated policies designed to ensure victims are supported.
The Peace Corps’ failures have sparked demands for more action.
“How many rapes are justified by work Peace Corps does through us volunteers?” asked Emma Tremblay, who served in Ecuador. “Ten a year? Twenty? How many sexual assaults? How many traumatic situations that Peace Corps could have prevented but didn’t?”
Emma Tremblay, then a 25- year- old Peace Corps volunteer from Seattle, was 4,000 miles from home on an exam table in Ecuador. A physician selected by the Peace Corps loomed over her and firmly placed his hand on her shoulder to keep her still.
“Do you feel good?” he asked, then leaned in, pressing his erection against her arm.
Tremblay feared he might go further. Half undressed, in pain and unsure whether she could fight him off, she stared him down. I'm fine, she said. When he backed away, Tremblay gathered her things and rushed onto Quito’s crowded streets.
Then, another violation of her trust: The Peace Corps had been warned the doctor was a threat.
Ashley Lipasek, a fellow volunteer, told Tremblay she had complained to the Peace Corps three months earlier in 2018 after the doctor hit on her and made vulgar remarks while touching her during an exam. The news left Tremblay shell- shocked.
“They knew he was predatory. They knew this could happen,” she said. “And they sent me to him anyway.”
The burden for these failures is borne by volunteers who once trusted the Peace Corps with their lives. Each year the federal agency deploys thousands of Americans — most of them young women, many fresh out of college — to far- flung posts around the globe with the goal of promoting world peace. A dozen volunteers who said they were sexually assaulted while serving between 2016 and 2020 shared their experiences with USA TODAY. Reporters corroborated many of their accounts with agency records, contemporaneous messages and interviews with fellow volunteers.
A woman in Kyrgyzstan endured frequent assaults on a bus she took to work before she learned the local Peace Corps office knew the route was dangerous. Another volunteer said she repeatedly was groped by the father in her host family in Zambia, yet Peace Corps staff waited more than a year before pulling her from the site. In Togo, after a volunteer left the Peace Corps because an employee at the school where she worked cornered her and pressured her for sex, the agency placed another woman in the same job – without telling her what happened.
Fellina Fucci said after a man in her Samoan village raped her, a Peace Corps safety and security manager questioned her memory, chastised her for not using a whistle during the attack and told her the assailant was a friend of his who would likely gossip about her.
In an interview, Fucci said she felt prepared for the risks of being a woman alone in a remote, foreign village. But she wasn’t prepared for how an agency she trusted ultimately let her down.
“I spent more time during my trauma therapy discussing the Peace Corps staff ’ s response to my assault rather than the assault itself,” Fucci said.
Peace Corps officials, in a series of interviews with USA TODAY, touted reforms such as improved privacy protections, increased sexual assault awareness training and the designation of liaisons in each country to assist victims. The agency said it regularly assesses risks to volunteers and takes steps to reduce assaults.
But confronted with USA TODAY’s findings, Acting Director Carol Spahn said in a written statement the agency would review the structure of its sexual assault program and direct its inspector general to investigate the cases identified by the newspaper. She did not comment on individual accounts but praised the women for speaking out and encouraged others to come forward.
Spahn committed to finalizing several ongoing reform efforts before putting volunteers back in the field.
The agency pulled all volunteers, nearly 7,000 in total, last year due to the pandemic and is now preparing to send a new class out.
“Although Peace Corps has made significant improvements in our risk reduction response and support programs over the last decade, these stories demonstrate that we still have work to do to support our volunteers,” Spahn said.
It’s unclear whether she and other top Peace Corps officials grasp the extent of the agency’s sexual assault problem.
Renée Ferranti, director of the agency’s Sexual Assault Risk- Reduction and Response Program, told USA TODAY that rapes and aggravated sexual assaults have “remained pretty steady over the years.”
That’s not true. Peace Corps data USA TODAY analyzed show rapes and forceful sexual assaults volunteers disclosed at the end of their service nearly doubled from 2015 to 2019. One out of every 3 volunteers — about 1,280 — who finished service in 2019 experienced a sexual assault ranging from groping to rape, up from roughly 1 out of 4 in 2015, according to Peace Corps data.
For women, the toll is even higher: 44% who finished service in 2019 were sexually assaulted in some way.
Spahn acknowledged sexual assaults are up but suggested that was mostly because agency reform efforts and the # metoo movement have made more victims comfortable coming forward.
But that discounts the agency’s own data, which undercuts the idea that volunteers are more likely to report to the agency. Reporting rates for rape and forcible sexual assaults have been relatively stagnant for the past five years, USA TODAY’s analysis found. Roughly half of rapes and three- quarters of aggravated sexual assaults of volunteers who ended their service in 2019 were unreported – the same as in 2015. Reporting rates only rose during that period for non- aggravated sexual assault.
Dyan Mazurana, a Tufts University professor who has studied sexual violence in the international aid community, said the Peace Corps’ sexual assault statistics depict “an organization that can’t get its act together.” She said the agency should shut down programs if Peace Corps staff can’t ensure its volunteers will be safe.
“That is so unacceptable. This is a job. You’re offering these people a job in programs that you run,” she said, “in projects that you set up, with communities that you have vetted, with hosts that you have vetted.”
The agency provided USA TODAY with copies of reports from the council since 2016 but redacted every recommendation.
Lipasek, the volunteer who first complained about the doctor in Ecuador, told USA TODAY that Peace Corps staff sent her to a follow- up appointment with him, despite her complaint. They later agreed to send her to a new physician.
By then, Tremblay had filed an assault report after her visit with the doctor. According to emails, Peace Corps staff offered her counseling, assured her they would no longer send volunteers to the “assailant” physician and said they would consider filing a report with his employer.
The doctor told USA TODAY he was unaware of the volunteers’ allegations. He said the Peace Corps stopped referring volunteers to him in 2018 but did not tell him why. The doctor denied the allegations and said he has never been sued or accused of sexual misconduct. USA TODAY is not naming him because it found no indication he is the subject of a criminal complaint.
Shortly before leaving Ecuador, Tremblay channeled her outrage into an Instagram account she titled PeaceCorpsHR, a jab at the fact that the Peace Corps lacks a human resources department for volunteers. The account has nearly 2,000 followers and features dozens of stories from volunteers disillusioned with the agency.
Tremblay hoped the page would trigger change. Instead, it triggered a threat.
In a September Instagram message reviewed by USA TODAY, an agency public relations official ordered Tremblay to remove the name “Peace Corps” and said if she did not, she could be fined or face jail time.
Tremblay added “unauthorized” to the page title but kept posting.
“How many rapes are justified by work Peace Corps does through us volunteers?” she told USA TODAY. “Ten a year? Twenty? How many sexual assaults? How many traumatic situations that Peace Corps could have prevented but didn’t?”