Insults to injury: Military sexual-assault victims endure retaliation

Tom Vanden Brook | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Troops who have reported sexual assaults are 12 times more likely to be retaliated against than to see their attacker convicted of sex crimes, according to a report on the fallout of filing a military sexual assault report by Human Rights Watch.

The report, to be released Monday, found that troops reporting sexual assaults have endured retaliation ranging from vile insults to social isolation and death threats. It is based on interviews with more than 150 victims of sexual assault and a review of military documents.

The Pentagon reported earlier this month that 62% of those troops reporting sexual assault in 2014 indicated that they had been subjected to some form of retaliation.

Punishment for those who retaliate, however, appears to be a rarity. Since 2012, the Pentagon inspector general, one of the military's main offices to investigate the offenses, has closed two cases without substantiating the charges. It has three open cases, according to Bridget Serchak, a spokeswoman for the inspector general.

Retaliation is a "significant issue for victims," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, who leads the Pentagon's sexual-assault prevention and response programs, adding that military leaders are drafting a strategy to deal with it. Among the proposed tactics: encouraging greater reporting of retaliation through a confidential tip line.

"The first thing in addressing any issue is to acknowledge you have got a problem," Snow said in an interview with USA TODAY. "And clearly we have done that and have taken steps. And we'll stay after it."

In 2014, there were about 20,000 incidents of what the military refers to as unwanted sexual contact, a 27% decline from 2012. Those incidents range from groping to rape. Nearly two-thirds of women who reported assaults also indicated they had been subject to retaliation. There were not enough data on men to draw conclusions.

"Retaliation doesn't encourage people to report," said Don Christensen, president of Protect our Defenders, an advocacy group for military sexual assault survivors and former chief prosecutor for the Air Force. "Over and over we hear from survivors the retaliation was the worst part. They wish they hadn't come forward."

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has advocated removing decisions to prosecute sex crimes from commanders and giving that authority to prosecutors. The Pentagon has successfully resisted making that change. The high level of retaliation against those who report sexual assaults show the need for such a change, said Gillibrand, a member of the Armed Services Committee.

"These sickening stories of retaliation against survivors should make every American angry," Gillibrand said in a statement. "We keep hearing how previous reforms were going to protect victims and make retaliation a crime. Yet there has been zero progress on this front, and this mission is failing, especially considering that 62% of female servicemembers report experiencing retaliation after they reported a sexual assault, and this figure has not changed in years."

Troops interviewed by the Human Rights Watch reported varying degrees of retaliation.

Among them:

• A Marine reported her car was vandalized in 2014 after the sexual assault report she filed was closed with her attackers being punished for alcohol violations. Her photo was posted on Facebook with insults and the threat that she needed to be silenced "before she lied about another rape." Another post read, "find her, tag her, haze her, make her life a living hell." She stopped eating at the dining hall out of fear.

• An Air Force victim said she was called a bitch and told, "You got what you deserved," after reporting a sexual assault. Her colleagues were angry at her for "ruining" her attacker's career.

• A soldier reported she felt targeted, isolated and harassed after filing a sexual-assault complaint. Friends told her they were ordered not to speak with her. "Sexual assault is not what messes you up," she told Human Rights Watch. "It is the reprisals, the hazing."

Senior Airman Ciera Bridges, 26, said her ordeal began shortly after arriving at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada in 2010. Her superiors made "inappropriate comments about my figure. My butt, pretty much."

The harassment escalated into groping and assault. After reporting the assault, Bridges, who worked in supplies, said she was transferred, demoted and threatened with a dishonorable discharge.

"I would have to go to drink to go to work," she said.

Her lawyers won her an honorable discharge in 2014, she said. And the Veterans Affairs Department found she suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome from the ordeal. She lives in San Antonio but mostly stays at home, unable to work. She hopes to return to school to earn a degree in human resources.

The victims' accounts collected by Human Rights Watch square with what Snow hears from survivors, he said.

"Some of them say that what happens in the wake is worse than the assault," Snow said. "We're doing the right things to address that. But it's something that we'll have to continue to monitor."

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has put a Sept. 1 deadline for the strategy to deal with retaliation. The draft plan calls for collecting better data on the problem and prevention efforts.