Women’s Rights Violations Still Pervasive in U.S. Military

Recently, it has become known that women in the U.S. military and related institutions are at significant risk of being sexually assaulted, harassed and raped, by their fellow service members. Sexual assault survivors and their advocates have called for systematic change that will provide for their safety by analyzing incidents of violence against women in all branches of the armed forces, and punish the perpetrators. As I have stated earlier that in a survey of The Citadel, a public military college in South Carolina, reported of having almost 20 percent of female cadets being sexually assaulted since enrolling. Another survey of U.S. military academies released last year found that more than half of female respondents and 11 percent of male respondents had experienced some type of sexual harassment since enrolling. In 2005, Congress established a Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military Services in recognition that violence against women is not confined to service academies. However, as of this summer (2006), the Department of Defense has not appointed any members to the task force. In February 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared, "Sexual assault will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense." Now, what has Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to say about the failure?