U.S.
Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images
A bill that would have taken sexual assault investigations in the armed forces away from the chain of command and into the hands of independent military prosecutors failed to win approval in the Senate late Tuesday — the second year in a row that the measure has been blocked.
The legislation, which was sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would have created an independent system for prosecuting sexual assaults in the armed forces, in a departure from the current policy, in which military commanders handle the cases, which has led to complaints that coming forward can lead to retaliation.
“We still see an average of 52 new [sexual assault] cases every day, and 3 out of 4 service member survivors still don’t think it’s worth the risk of coming forward to report the crimes committed against them,” Gillibrand said in a speech to colleagues Tuesday before the vote. “Let’s put these decisions into the hands of trained, seasoned prosecutors.”
But the measure, which would have amended the National Defense Authorization Act, which appropriates military spending for fiscal year 2016, received only 50 affirmative votes in the Senate, falling short of the 60 it needed to pass.
The Pentagon vehemently opposed Gillibrand’s plan, arguing that military commanders ought to be more involved in bringing charges in sexual assault claims, not less. Opponents of the measure said that it could make it impossible to work out nonjudicial punishments, sparing victims the difficulty of a trial.
Congress passed a comprehensive defense bill in 2013 that aimed to crack down on sexual assault by removing military commanders’ ability to overturn jury convictions and requiring any service member convicted of sexual assault to face either dishonorable discharge or dismissal.
But some lawmakers and advocates for sexual assault survivors have argued that those changes don’t go far enough. An independent report commissioned by Barack Obama’s administration found that while reported sexual assault incidents in the military increased by 8 percent in 2014 from the previous year, implying that more people were coming forward, only a quarter of survivors of sexual assault said they reported the incident, according to an anonymous survey of service members.
As such, Gillibrand has pushed back against the findings of recent Pentagon surveys, which found that sexual assaults were decreasing and more victims were coming forward. She said the recent numbers showed a 62 percent retaliation rate against military women who come forward about a sexual assault and that 1 in 7 assaults is inflicted by someone in the victim’s chain of command.
The Pentagon in May reported a 27 percent decline in sexual assaults over the last two years and an 11 percent increase in reporting of sexual assaults in an anonymous survey that it conducts biannually.
With wire services
Liesl Gerntholtz, the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights division, weighs in on the findings
Victims' advocates say separation of prosecution process from chain of command key in getting more people to speak out
Error
Sorry, your comment was not saved due to a technical problem. Please try again later or using a different browser.