In the past month the U.S. congress
passed the expanded Violence against Women Act that had been pending for a year
and a half. Senator Kristen Gillibrand, a democrat from New York went to war
against sexual assault in the U.S. military and was the first to hold senate
hearings about this problem in nearly a decade. She noted that a whopping 19000
sexual assaults happen a year and that only a small among of perpetrators are
being prosecuted. Until now, sexual violence in the military had gone ignored
and of the few complaints that were actually being filed only 10% of them made
it to trial. Gilbrands hearing put the spotlight on sexual assault in the
military and women being sexually assaulted in general and it gave her a platform
to spread the word. The hearing came at a crucial time for the Pentagon which
had just ended its ban on women in combat and was grappling with sexual
harassment cases and rapes at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. She also encouraged
nonprofits like Vital Voices Global Partnership, the drive to end violence
against women. Vital Voices Global Partnership is led by Cindy Dyer a tough, bold and street smart, a real-life
advocate, investigator and prosecutor of sexual crimes against women who more
than 20years of experience. Ms. Dryer travels all over battling assault against
women and knows how extremely difficult it is to even make a case. In a recent
interview in Washington she said “The judges insisted it was a waste of time,’’
she said. “One judge said to me, ‘Why send him to jail for beating a piece of
trash?’ ” She soon found out that the hardest crime to combat is the most common:
it is domestic violence. It happens in the privacy of the home and victims are
usually afraid to press charges. She did some international work on violence
against women and found the same problems in Africa that she had faced in
Dallas. She decided to focus on international work full time Looking over
different regions, she said Brazil and Jordan had made major progress, but
places with ongoing or recent armed conflict prove most intractable, like Congo
and Cambodia. “Mexico is also difficult because of the drug wars and corruption
in law enforcement,” she said. “Egypt was doing better for women before the
revolution of 2011. Now they are focused on other things, not on advancing
women.” I think that assault on women is in extreme issue which many people
fail to recognize. I have once been a victim myself and I know how easy it is
to sweep incidents under the rug instead of dealing with it. Due to the fact
that the man is supposed to be the alpha male many women don’t think too much
of it when their spouse pushes them, chokes them, or grabs them too roughly,
and by time he seriously physically harms them or even kills them it’s too late
so just bringing awareness to the issues is really important. I also think that
the military and sexual assault there is a whole different issue because of the
“organization” that it is. I think commanding officers should be retrained and
that the military as a whole should enforce new rules to let people know that
what has been going on in the pass is no longer acceptable.
4/4/13 4:47pm
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