Victims of Sexual Assault in Military Are Being Discharged for Filing Complaints

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36951-victims-of-sexual-assault-in-military-are-being-discharged-for-filing-complaints

“Military personnel who report a sexual assault frequently find that their military career is the biggest casualty,” the group says in a new study. It spoke to 163 veterans ousted from the military between 1966 and 2015 after complaining about sexual abuse, ranging from harassment to rape. “Our interviews suggest that all too often superior officers choose to expeditiously discharge sexual-assault victims rather than support their recovery and help them keep their position.” The nonprofit group will release its report into the process Thursday in Washington.

“For far too many years, the service members and veterans who have survived military sexual trauma have been re-victimized by improper discharges and an ineffective and discriminatory claims-review process,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the senior Democrat on the veterans affairs committee, tells TIME. “These survivors deserve better.”

A Pentagon inspector general’s report released Tuesday made clear that the military process for those leaving the service after complaining about sexual abuse could use tidying up. Two of every three personnel files the IG requested from the services were incomplete, and one of every five could not be found. The IG conducted the inquiry after Congress said, in last year’s defense bill, that it was “concerned about early discharges of service members who have made a report of sexual assault.”

The Pentagon process for reviewing discharges is stacked against the discharged, through a byzantine and skewed process that, by default, contends their ouster was proper. “This is one of the weakest links in the American system of justice,” says Eugene Fidell of Yale Law School, a former president of the National Institute of Military Justice who says he has represented “scores” of veterans seeking upgraded discharges.

The Navy, for example, says it “will always presume” the original discharge was “correct,” and that unhappy ex-sailors must produce “clear and substantial evidence” the service was wrong. “Many service members reported being singled out for discipline for minor infractions following a sexual assault report in an effort, they believe, to create a record justifying a misconduct discharge,” the study says.