Sexual Assault in Today's Military (Essay Sample)

Sexual Assault in Today's Military
Name
Institution
Introduction
According to Black's Law Dictionary, 8th Edition, Sexual Assault was defines as “any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced, or forced to engage against their will, or any sexual touching of a person who has not consented. This includes rape (such as forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration), groping, forced kissing, child sexual abuse, or the torture of the victim in a sexual manner.” (Messman-Moore, Long & Patricia, 2000, p. 498). In this case, it is clear that sexual assault is an inhuman act in which both men and women have been victims in one scenario or the other.
The society and the environment people living have defined the perpetration of this act with mostly women and children falling victim. In the recent past, the world witnesses the most brutal sexual assault to an Indian girl raped to death in a bus. In nations where civil war is experience, children and women have fallen victim of sexual assaults as law enforcers take advantage of the situation. In a twist of events, there has been an increasing women being assaulted by military in various parts of the world. This study will expound on sexual assault in today’s military in which the victims and solutions are sourced.
The situation Sexual Assault in Today's Military
Studies have been conducted on the possible population of the victims who have been sexually assaulted by either the general Public or the military. However, in this case, the study looked into the sexual assault by military and to research the motives and the effects to the assaulted persons.
To start with, the areas under civil war are prone to sexual assaults as military activities increases ion the efforts to keep peace in such nations. The innocent citizens end up being assaulted as the military take advantage of the helpless women and girls in these regions. This happens as various international and regional armed forces such as United Nation forces, NATO, and European Peace keeping mission forces are sent to areas prone to violence and civil war such as Syria, Egypt, and other countries that have experience civil war recently.
It is inhuman for military to divert from their roles and take advantage of the situation to threaten and sometimes killing the victims who turn down their sexual proposals. It is pity that in some parts of the world historically there has been sexual assaults on innocent people yet the international leaders have done little on administering justice to the victims. In these nations, men are targeted as rebels or threat to peace hence they opt to leave their homes and flee to other nations to avert torture or victimisation. This has lead to increase of refugees and immigrants in the world. However, women and children may find it difficult to flee hence are left behind in their homes or internal refugees camps under the mercies of the countries administration and peace keeping mission.
On the other hand, the military and other peace keeping officers must patrol in their efforts to keep peace. Unfortunately, not in all situations there has been peaceful patrols as these military turn against women and girls who are raped and in some cases raped repeatedly in front of the children or their husbands. This is very awkward given that these people should be keeping peace yet they turn brutal. When it gets bitter, these military may opt to kill the victim or threaten them never to disclose the events (Krantz, &Garcia-Moreno, 2005).
The effects of these sexual assaults are traumatising to both the direct victims and indirect victims such as children and men. For instance, the ugly scenario keeps haunting the victim as they develop trauma of how the events happened. Worse may happen when the victim contracts a sexual transmitted infections or diseases because they will ruin their lives. On the other hand, children present during the assault grow in a bad environment.
It is worth noting that all military are unethical because in some civil war affected countries have regained peace without much of assaults. The success of a peace mission lies in the hands of their commanders and leaders who must ensure there are no malpractices or inhuman activities during their missions. According to the editorial board of the Washington Post, a Pentagon survey revealed that the assaulted persons fear disclosing their traumatising experiences. For instance, only 3,374 incidents of sexual assault were reported from 26,000 service members who were the target of unwanted sexual contact in fiscal 2012 (Editorial Board, 2013)
.Various reasons have been put into place why the sexual assault victims never file cases because they fear that nothing may yield after all. Among the reasons victims fail to pursue their cases is concern about how they will be treated. A good example is the experience of a young woman who alleges that she was raped by three fellow Naval Academy students. This is led by lack of clarity in law despite the presence of various acts such as article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The arguments pursuant to this act failed to make it clear.
Myla Haider in her press conference spoke out her rape assault and what she went through as an officer in various capacities and how she tried to heal the situation. At one time, she faulted the gender issue in her carrier in which most of her colleagues were men soldiers. She says “There was no privacy; it was just sand as far as you can see. I didn't change clothes; we were in chemical suits for two weeks straight." When she joined military as a CID she had been raped but dared not to say it because she believed that "I've never met one victim who was able to report the crime and still retain their military career” (Lawrence & Penaloza, 2013, p. 1) This means there are many cases go unpunished as people fear the consequences.
The government has a role to play in fighting this problem in order to safeguard the human rights and freedom guaranteed to its citizens. That is why the top general in the U.S. Armed Forces warned of a crisis of confidence in the growing ranks of women soldiers due to a rash of sexual assault cases that has prompted lawmakers to act (Zengerle, 2013). That’s why president Obama assured full support and measures to be taken on the perpetrators and called for cooperation within military to ensure women soldiers are not prone to sexual assaults as more of them get various roles in military.
Consequently, Brook (2013) cited that the Pentagon is divided on prosecution of sexual assault as the Senate Democrats on the Armed Services Committee have various roles in this battle. The senate ...