Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.
I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.
But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.
And when that issue concerns protecting women in the military from sexual assault, it should be absolutely unacceptable for the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to shirk their responsibilities of doing all they can to address what is a very serious issue, which includes participating in a congressional hearing on why so many alarming reports have been surfacing about the sexual assault rate in the military.
To bring you up to speed, various reports have indicated:
* Across various eras of military activity, 1 in 3 military women have reported being victims of sexual assault
* Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma
* Of the women who indicated having experienced sexual assault in a GAO study, around 50% indicated they did not report the incident because they didn't think anything would be done about it.
Dr. Kaye Whitley is the Pentagon's Director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), which is quoted on their website as being the "single point of accountability for the Defense Department's sexual assault policy." However, when Congress became concerned that, despite SAPRO's activities, reports of sexual assault in the military were trickling back at an alarming rate, they mandated that the DOD develop an independent task force to investigate the issue.
Unfortunately, the DOD has neither named nor called to order this task force in the four years since the congressional mandate to do so. And last month, when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a subpoena for Dr. Whitley to participate in a hearing on sexual assault in the military, the Pentagon blocked Whitley from appearing.
The Pentagon gave the excuse that Whitley was not the appropriate person to testify on this issue. The Director of the single point of accountability for the DOD's sexual assault policies? Please. Luckily, the Pentagon's weak excuse for its actions didn't just trigger red flags for me: Rep. Henry Waxman recognized the DOD's evasive tactics -- and sent a formal letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, threatening to hold him in contempt of Congress.
My, how people suddenly come around when it's their own reputation on the line: Gates has agreed to let Whitley testify at the hearing. I, for one, will be waiting in anticipation to hear what she has to say about SAPRO's efforts to address the disturbing reports of violence against women in the military.
The good news is that Whitley is testifying. We may finally get some answers. But the bad news is that we still don't have any indication as to when, if at all, the DOD will call the task force to order. We still need to put the pressure on Whitley to follow through on those orders. Help join the fight by signing our petition to Kaye Whitley, director of SAPRO.
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