http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oew-marshall30jan30-story.html
I have scoured the internet looking for information pertaining to the topic of military rape based on the lesson we discussed on Thursday. I have found this one which gives information to the injustices commonly done to those who bring light to their rape cases. When thinking about the topic we discussed this article also follows the information that men’s cases are less commonly mentioned or observed, even in this article.
The main focus of this LA Times article is to shed light on the issue of perpetrators of sexual assault in the military being shielded for their crimes. There are many statistics which support the fact that many of these cases are never even prosecuted. Another focus of this article is on the harassment and intimidation of victims who decide to step forward.
Women in this article were subjected to different forms of harassment, intimidation, and threats which commonly caused them to either leave the army of suffer silently. One woman who was ‘put through the ringers’ was held away from others, threatened to be charged for a false report, and threatened for being AWOL when she refused to return to work with her perpetrator. Other women were sometimes forcefully bribed into dropping charges or they would be given criminal statuses.
All of this information goes to show that the military needs much work to decriminalize the act of simply trying to bring justice for their cases. With the information learned on Friday, how much better/worse do you think this is for the male rape victims? Do they face harsher threats or are they ignored all-together?