Findings of the British Equal Opportunities Commission
A joint survey was carried out by the Ministry of Defence and the Equal Opportunities Commission to determine the nature and extent of sexual harassment and sexualised behaviour in the British armed forces. Sexualised behaviour was described as ‘unwanted sexual contact, sending of explicit material, unwelcome comments and sexual assaults’.
The findings were released on 22 March 2006 and have caused widespread consternation. Almost all (99%) who responded had been in situations where such sexualised behaviours had taken place in the previous 12 months, with two-thirds (67%) having had such behaviours directed at them personally and 15% having had a ‘particularly upsetting’ experience.
Some of the other major findings of the survey are as follows:
- Almost all (99%) of the servicewomen had been in situations where sexualised behaviours had taken place in the previous 12 months and over half of them found them offensive.
- Explicit sexual language, details of sexual exploits and pornography were the behaviours most frequently found offensive.
- Over two-thirds (67%) had also encountered in the previous 12 months sexual behaviours directed at them personally. These varied from making unwelcome comments, sending sexually explicit material and unwanted touching through to sexual assaults.
- The younger the women, the more likely they were to have experienced unwelcome sexual behaviours. Seventy-seven per cent of women under 23 had experienced behaviours compared to 44% of women in their forties.
- Just over 15% of survey respondents reported having had a “particularly upsetting” experience. Sexual assault was cited by 12.7% of survey respondents.
- Twenty-one per cent of the perpetrators of these experiences were the individual’s own senior and a further 36% were other personnel senior to the individual.
- Only 5% of those who had suffered a particularly upsetting experience made a formal written complaint. Nearly half of them were dissatisfied with the length of time it took to resolve. 46% were dissatisfied with the way they were kept informed and 42% were dissatisfied with the way the outcome was explained.
- Over half of those who made a formal complaint stated that there had been negative consequences as a result of which 64% were considering leaving the Services.
Sexual Harassment of Women Soldiers in the US
The US society is highly emancipated and liberal with women having equal status in all walks of life. However, the recent case of Specialist Suzanne Swift of 54th Military Police Company has traumatised the entire nation and exposed the degree of ill-treatment meted out to women in the US forces. Swift has declined to serve in Iraq during her unit’s second tenure of duty there.
During her first tenure in Iraq, she was one of three women in her unit and has accused her superiors of intense sexual harassment using ‘war zone as a pretext’. She has claimed that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by three sergeants in Iraq. Intense publicity received by the case has forced the authorities to take a fresh look at the problem that they all knew existed but preferred to ignore. Sexual harassment and assaults of women soldiers is known to be blatant and quite prevalent. The Defence Department has conceded that reports of sexual assaults rose 40 percent to 2,374 in 2005.
The extent to which the malaise of sexual harassment pervades can be gauged from the fact that a sexual harassment hotline set up at Aberdeen received 6,825 calls from women from all branches of the military in just two months. Many women have been too traumatised to lead a normal life afterwards and need continuous counselling and medical attention.
According to Miles Foundation, a non-profit organisation that provides service to victims of military violence and advocates stricter implementation of protective laws, approximately 508 women have complained of sexual assault in the forces since the beginning of Iraq war in 2003. Due to the ongoing hostilities, rape victims are neither given any medical treatment nor can any test be carried out in field conditions to collect medical proof of rape for pressing criminal charges.
Many women dread duty in war zone. Several young women prefer to be declared ‘absent without leave’ due to their fears of sexual assaults. But most of them are too scared to speak out. The case of Colleen Mussolino, who served as a cook at Women’s Army Corps, is symptomatic of the fear stifling women’s complaints. She was gang raped, beaten and left for dead. Under continued threats, she ultimately signed an undertaking promising not to press for prosecution.
‘Command rape’ has come to be accepted as a common phenomenon in the military. A superior official, under the might of his command authority, can force a subordinate woman soldier to accede to his sexual demands. Many feel that women in the military are no good as soldiers and their real value lies in their contribution to keep the organisation in good cheer.
Women Soldiers and the Liberated Societies
During the recent debate over the issue of women’s induction in the Indian defence services, the military brass came under severe criticism for it’s allegedly anti-women bias. Many senior officers are reluctant to have women subordinates because of their concern for their safety and dignity. They are over-cautious in assigning duties to them lest they be exposed to any harm. Most superior officers take it as their personal duty and moral obligation to ensure the well-being of women in their command.
Indian senior brass takes pride in the fact that there have hardly been any cases of sexual harassment in the Indian defence forces despite the fact that the Indian soldier is drawn from rustic stock where women to date are consigned a lesser status.
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