Last year, I wrote one of the most wrenching stories I’ve ever had to report, about female contractors who were sexually assaulted by their co-workers in Iraq. These women–ranging from a Catholic mom in her 50s to a 20-year-old from Texas whose attacker left her drugged, bleeding and bruised–chose to work in a war zone. They chose to walk into a kind of danger most of are too frightened to imagine. But they never signed up to be attacked by the men who worked beside them.
I’ve already complained once on this blog about our government’s astounding reluctance to prosecute these crimes. In today’s New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert adds his voice to the cause.
He notes that the crimes are increasing:
“New data released by the Pentagon showed an almost 9 percent increase in the number of sexual assaults reported in the last fiscal year — 2,923 — and a 25 percent increase in such assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
And he wonders, as I do, why a government institution as tightly controlled as the U.S. military acts so helpless in the face of this disgrace. As the rapes go unreported, and the perpetrators escape punishment, exactly what kind of message are we sending? Apparently, it’s imperative to spread human rights and democracy throughout the world, but those rights don’t apply to American women.
