Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty,(rafflaw), Guest Blogger
In the past we have discussed the ongoing war on Women that is being waged by the Right, but this latest example is a tough one to swallow. When military women are raped while in the service, it turns out that military health insurance does not cover abortions, even when the servicewoman has been raped. I discovered this sad fact when I was reading the ACLU Blog. Jessica Kenyon joined the Army in 2005 and while on duty she was raped by a fellow member of the Army and made the mistake of not reporting it.
“I was raped by a fellow soldier when I was stationed in Korea. I found out I was pregnant as a result of the rape when my commander called me into his office one day to charge me with adultery. A doctor at the medical center had told my commander — but not me — that I was pregnant. I hadn’t reported the rape because I was trying to “soldier on” and I didn’t trust my chain of command. This is an environment where women are constantly targeted for various forms of abuse. As it turns out I was not charged, not because I was raped, but because I was divorced. Then I faced the fact that military health insurance doesn’t allow abortion coverage in cases of rape, and I was unable to have a safe abortion off-base, so I was stuck. I was discharged from the military due to the trauma of the rape and attacks. I flew back home to the U.S. after being discharged from the Army for my own safety and ended up miscarrying.” ACLU Blog
Doesn’t it seem a tad inequitable that a woman service member cannot be treated for the crimes committed against them by male members of the military? Congress would cure this problem if given the chance, wouldn’t they? Congress did have the chance recently and they turned up their collective noses on the idea that military rape victims should be able to obtain an abortion under the military health insurance plans! “The Davis-Andrews-DeGette-Maloney-Sanchez-Slaughter Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act should have been a no-brainer. It would have allowed the military health system to cover abortion care in cases of rape and incest – just as the federal government does in the Medicaid program, for federal employees and for women who use the Indian Health Service, among others. All the amendment would do is stop singling out U.S. servicewomen and military families for inferior treatment. And yet, last night, House leadership prevented debate and a floor vote on this important amendment. Never mind that the House will vote on 152 other defense bill amendments; anti-choice members decided that the wellbeing of U.S. servicewomen wasn’t worth 10 minutes of debate.” ACLU Blog Who are these people who would treat military women different from any other citizen who has been brutally raped? They are your faithful servants and Representatives in the United States House of Representatives!
I guess the 3,158 reported cases of sexual assault and rape in the military in 2010 was just too small of a number for our Representatives to consider that the victims should have access to the proper health care coverage. Do you think these Representatives would change their mind if their own daughter, wife, sister or relative was one of the reported or unreported victims of rape in the military??
Amen to what Mike S. said. Can the rapes that are rampant in the military continue to happen without the leadership turning a blind eye?
Buddha is Lying again, Mr M.
FM III,
I am very proud to be an American and honor the service of all who served honorably. However, one cannot be a rapist, misogynist and sexual harasser and also be an honorable veteran. As to your other statements, while meaning no disrespect or diminishing of veterans and our armed forces, one can find many examples of those non-military activists you cite who have meant just as much in the preservation of our values throughout history as veterans. That would include many lawyers who never wore a uniform.
Hyperbole in describing the sacrifices of our brave troops has often been used to obfuscate the fact that many sacrificed their lives in the cause of vanity and greed. GW Bush and Cheney would often talk glowingly of veterans, while they cut their benefits,
scrimped on life protecting equipment and killed and maimed them in an unjustified war. Neither of these men served honorably.
Pardon, thanks to Frank Mascagni III!
Too much time at the lake yesterday, not enough sleep and coffee.
Mea culpa, Frank.
I see a poem here and when on semi-autopilot, my brain fills in “Elaine” out of habit.
Elaine,
Thanks for the lovely poem. It underscores why Memorial Day is a bittersweet holiday not just for me, but for many who have had family serve and die for this country, for this is rapidly becoming the kind of nation they fought to avoid, not promote. A kind of nation where the
GestapoFBI watches the every move of those who would dare disagree whilst our civil liberties are sold off to the highest corporate bidder . . . http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43208176/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/Elaine,
Those are horrible statistics! 80-90% of all military rapes go unreported! And why doesn’t tricare cover abortion at least in the cases of rape??? The inequality is astounding.
Preparation for Memorial Day
It is the
VETERAN,
not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.
It is
the VETERAN,
not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.
It is
the VETERAN,
not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.
It is
the VETERAN,
not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is
the VETERAN,
not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is
the VETERAN,
not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote.
It is the
VETERAN who
salutes the Flag,
It is
the
VETERAN
who serves
under the Flag,
ETERNAL REST GRANT THEM O LORD,
AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.
God
Bless them all!!!
Makes you proud to be an AMERICAN!!!!
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Sexual Assaults on Female Soldiers: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
By Nancy Gibbs
Time, 3/8/2010
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1968110,00.html
Excerpt:
What does it tell us that female soldiers deployed overseas stop drinking water after 7 p.m. to reduce the odds of being raped if they have to use the bathroom at night? Or that a soldier who was assaulted when she went out for a cigarette was afraid to report it for fear she would be demoted — for having gone out without her weapon? Or that, as Representative Jane Harman puts it, “a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.”
The fight over “Don’t ask, don’t tell” made headlines this winter as an issue of justice and history and the social evolution of our military institutions. We’ve heard much less about another set of hearings in the House Armed Services Committee. Maybe that’s because too many commanders still don’t ask, and too many victims still won’t tell, about the levels of violence endured by women in uniform.
The Pentagon’s latest figures show that nearly 3,000 women were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2008, up 9% from the year before; among women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number rose 25%. When you look at the entire universe of female veterans, close to a third say they were victims of rape or assault while they were serving — twice the rate in the civilian population.
The problem is even worse than that. The Pentagon estimates that 80% to 90% of sexual assaults go unreported, and it’s no wonder. Anonymity is all but impossible; a Government Accountability Office report concluded that most victims stay silent because of “the belief that nothing would be done; fear of ostracism, harassment, or ridicule; and concern that peers would gossip.” More than half feared they would be labeled troublemakers. A civilian who is raped can get confidential, or “privileged,” advice from her doctors, lawyers, victim advocates; the only privilege in the military applies to chaplains. A civilian who knows her assailant has a much better chance of avoiding him than does a soldier at a remote base, where filing charges can be a career killer — not for the assailant but the victim. Women worry that they will be removed from their units for their own “protection” and talk about not wanting to undermine their missions or the cohesion of their units. And then some just do the math: only 8% of cases that are investigated end in prosecution, compared with 40% for civilians arrested for sex crimes. Astonishingly, about 80% of those convicted are honorably discharged nonetheless.
The sense of betrayal runs deep in victims who joined the military to be part of a loyal team pursuing a larger cause; experts liken the trauma to incest and the particular damage done when assault is inflicted by a member of the military “family.” Women are often denied claims for posttraumatic stress caused by the assault if they did not bring charges at the time. There are not nearly enough mental-health professionals in the system to help them. Female vets are four times more likely to be homeless than male vets are, according to the Service Women’s Action Network, and of those, 40% report being victims of sexual assault.
I agree Pete. Many cases of rape go unreported.
3,158 are the number of reported cases. just my personal experience with the navy, i’d guess the actual number to be at least three times that.
that was before fundies began taking over the officer corps.
Mike S.,
Well said!
Elaine,
Thanks for the links. I remember Franken’s amendment and how hard it was to get it passed. How could anyone vote against it??
My next to youngest granddaughter expressed an interest in joining the service. The entire family joined forces and talked her out of it … because she is female and we all know that she would be in far more danger from her fellow service members than from any enemy.
Interestingly enough this is the first generation of females in my family since WWI who won’t have a female member who served. The present day horror stories are just too many and too frequent. My oldest daughter spent 5 years in the Air Force and loved every minute of it (well, all except for basic training). Her two kids were born on base. She will be the last and the end of a proud family tradition dating from 1916.
Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR’s Treatment Of Rape
10/7/2009
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/07/kbr-rape-franken-amendment/
Excerpt:
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:
The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.
On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) spoke against the amendment, calling it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.” Franken responded, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”
In the end, Franken won the debate. His amendment passed by a 68-30 vote, earning the support of 10 Republican senators including that of newly-minted Florida Sen. George LeMieux. “He did what a senator should do, which was he was working it,” LeMieux said in praise of Franken. “He was working for his amendment.”
Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. “It means the world to me,” she said of the amendment’s passage. “It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.”
This post brought to my mind the following story that happened some time ago:
Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
12/10/2007
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3977702&page=1
Excerpt:
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.
“Don’t plan on working back in Iraq. There won’t be a position here, and there won’t be a position in Houston,” Jones says she was told.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.
“It felt like prison,” says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming “20/20” investigation. “I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened.”
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
**********
Court rules that KBR employee’s gang rape wasn’t a personal injury ‘arising in the workplace.’
9/16/2009
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/16/jones-sue-kbr/
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. In an apparent attempt to cover up the incident, the company then put her in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” Even more insultingly, the DOJ resisted bringing any criminal charges in the matter. KBR argued that Jones’ employment contract warranted her claims being heard in private arbitration — without jury, judge, public record, or transcript of the proceedings. After 15 months in arbitration, Jones and her lawyers went to court to fight the KBR claims. Yesterday, a court ruled in favor of Jones.” Mother Jones reports:
Jones argued that the alleged gang rape was not related to her employment and thus, wasn’t covered by the arbitration agreement. Finally, two years later, a federal court has sensibly agreed with her. Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2 to 1 ruling, found her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract.
One of the judges who ruled in her favor, Rhesa Hawkins Barksdale, is a West Point grad, Vietnam vet, and one of the court’s most conservative members, a sign, perhaps, of just how bad the facts are in this case. It’s a big victory, but a bitter one that shows just how insidious mandatory arbitration is. It’s taken Jones three years of litigation just to get to the point where she can finally sue the people who allegedly wronged her. It will be many more years before she has a shot at any real justice.
“We do not hold that, as a matter of law, sexual-assault allegations can never ‘relate to’ someone’s employment,” wrote the court. “For this action, however, Jones’ allegations do not ‘touch matters’ related to her employment, let alone have a ‘significant relationship’ to her employment contract.
God Damn the anti-abortion hypocrites for their faux moral stances.
In truth the entire movement s one of misogyny and hatred of female sexuality. The truth is that they are gutless enough to murder health care professionals, but unable to admit the truth about their movement openly, or even to themselves. This isn’t morality it is simple prejudice and hatred, tinged by their own ignored self-loathing.
eniobob,
Thanks for the link!
Heres more raff,my oldest daughter did a tour in the Air Force she didn’t endure sexual harassment to my knowledge but something did change her.I think it was a different kind of harassment,but I came across this article:
Sex and the Military Woman: Female Soldiers Are Not Just Victims
written by Jessica Scott
on March 29, 2010
I’ve been in the Army for nearly 15 years: I enlisted in the mid-’90s when there were still Vietnam Vets on active duty, the wounds from Somalia still bled and the lessons from Desert Storm were still being learned. I joined like many young women today: straight out of high school, looking for something to do while I figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. The Army helped me figure out that I was a pretty good soldier. I am grateful for all the opportunity the Army has given me, but please understand, I am not speaking for the Army, nor am I speaking for any other woman who has served. I am speaking only for myself. I am not the same naive private I was 15 years ago. The officer I am today is not the same as the non-commissioned officer I once was.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/regardingwar/conversations/women-and-war/sex-and-the-military-woman-female-soldiers-are-not-just-victims.php
I knew about this, but did not realize it was as bad as it was. Thanks, raff, for the stats. The numbers are staggering. Makes you want to go punch somebody. Like a congressman or general. Sick.
No, we owe them MORE protection. The incidents of rape in the military is astounding. Many go unreported because of the “warrior spirit” bullshit as well as the good-old-boy chain of command that assumes either she wanted it or she really shouldn’t be there or its just the boys letting off some steam.
I failed to stop my son from joining but I would kidnap my daughter before I would allow her in todays Army. These privileged asshole that rampage through the hall of Congress mostly never served and certainly their children won’t unless it is in a champagne unit like Boy Blunder and the Bengston boys.