As Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter takes over a department plagued by budget cuts and increased threats to national security, lawmakers are urging him not to forget about the battle to end sexual assault within the military. A bipartisan group of more than 50 lawmakers sent a letter last week to Mr. Carter saying that while previous secretaries have made progress, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially the “unacceptably high” rate of service members who face retaliation for reporting an attack. “We respectfully request that as secretary of defense, you continue the commitment shown by your predecessors to addressing sexual assault in the military, bringing the full weight of your office to bear on improving the military’s response to sexual assault and preventing it from happening in the first place,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Reps. Mike Turner, Ohio Republican, and Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts Democrat. “Our service members must feel safe in reporting sexual assault if there is to be true progress toward ending it.”
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While Mr. Carter made no specific mention of making sexual assault prevention a priority in his first message to Defense Department employees, he did promise to focus on the “well-being, safety and dignity” of troops, civilian employees and their families.
An independent report released in December found that sexual assaults across the entire military were decreasing while the reporting of the crimes was up, largely seen as a positive step forward by advocates and members of Congress.
Despite those improvements, however, the report from Rand Corp., an independent, government-supported research center, found that more than 60 percent of those who reported a crime faced retaliation, mostly from peers, though occasionally from supervisors.
