US service members suspended in anti-sexual assault campaign

The U.S. military has removed 60 service members, including military recruiters, drill instructors and victim counselors, in an attempt to address the endemic problem of sexual assault in the country's armed forces, officials said Friday.

The Army said 55 people had been suspended from their positions for a variety of reasons, ranging from alcohol-related concerns to sexual misconduct, following Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's order to perform screenings of military personnel.

The Navy said it had screened more than 10,000 people and removed five from their positions. The service hopes to complete 20,000 screenings by Oct. 1, according to The Associated Press.

The suspensions, which were first reported by USA Today, are the first attempts to root out sexual offenders following a review published in May that estimated 26,000 service members have been sexually assaulted in the last year alone, representing a 37 percent increase from 2010 of cases of unwanted sexual contact in the military.

But military sexual assault survivors say that the effort isn't nearly enough to redress their grievances.

Colleen Bushnell, a 40-year-old veteran from Albany, N.Y., who worked as a public affairs official at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, told Al Jazeera that she felt isolated and stigmatized when she was raped by a male superior in 2003 and sexually assaulted by her commander, a woman, in 2004.

"It pretty much devastated every area of my life," she said. Bushnell said she ultimately lost custody of her children following a court's ruling on the basis of a military diagnosis, which Al Jazeera was able to view, that said she had a personality disorder, and had attempted to commit suicide several times.

Bushnell is now is a volunteer at Protect our Defenders, an advocacy organization, and runs a community outreach project through which she strives to teach other military sexual assault survivors to tell their stories to the world using social media.

"We have come to the conclusion that we have to fight back," she said. "We've got 25 hearings over the last 30 years on Capitol Hill on this issue and it's gotten worse."

In May, Hagel announced a plan to enhance the Department of Defense's (DOD) sexual assault prevention and response efforts, with the aim of ensuring that every service member "clearly understands" they are responsible for fostering a climate where sexual assault is not tolerated, the AP reported.

Defense spokesman Tom Crosson told Al Jazeera, “Together, everyone in this department at every level of command will continue to work together to establish an environment of dignity and respect, where sexual assault is not tolerated, condoned or ignored and where there is clear accountability placed on all leaders at every level."

But Bushnell said that the suspensions are "disingenuous," and that she doesn't believe the military really intends to curb sexual assault in the military.

"We've gone through the whole cycle before; we introduce legislation, the DOD fights back," and nothing happens, she said. "It's a charade."

The report followed a number of high-profile sexual assault cases implicating military leadership at the highest levels. In April, a commander overturned Air Force Gen. James Wilkerson’s aggravated sexual assault conviction and one-year-prison sentence, and proceeded to reinstate Wilkerson in the Air Force.

In May, Lt. Colin Darin Haas, sexual harassment program manager at Fort Campbell, Ky., and Sgt. 1^st Class Gregory McQueen, a sexual harassment response coordinator in Fort Hood, Texas, were both removed from their positions following charges and allegations of sexual assault and running a small-scale prostitution network.

Nearly 80 percent of women serving in the military since Vietnam have experienced sexual harassment, according to Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), an advocacy group serving military sexual assault victims.

However, 86 percent of all cases of sexual assault goes unreported, according to DOD estimates. Women's rights advocates say officers aren’t prepared to adequately deal with the issue.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) proposed removing sexual assault cases from the chain of command and giving jurisdiction over the issue to experienced military prosecutors, introducing the 2013 Military Justice Improvement Act, intended to reduce victims’ fear of retaliation.

Of the DOD’s 26,000 estimated cases of sexual assault and other sexual crimes in 2012, only 2,558 victims sought justice by filing an unrestricted report, and only 302 proceeded to trial, Protect our Defenders reports.

"I didn't report the first time for fear of my safety," Bushnell said. When she reported the second assault, she says that she "was retaliated against from the moment that it was reported. I felt that people were more concerned with covering themselves than they were with helping me."

Anu Bhagwati, SWAN’s executive director, speaking at a panel on MSNBC Saturday, said that five years after the Israeli military took measures to remove sexual assault cases from the victim's chain of command, reporting went up with 80 percent.

"I think it's absolutely paramount," Bushnell said. "I don't believe the military is capable of responsibly dealing with sexual assault."

Nearly one in three convicted sexual assault offender remains in the military, SWAN reports.

With Al Jazeera and wire services