WASHINGTON (CLARKSVILLENOW) — This week the Defense Department released its annual report on sexual assault in the military, which shows an increase in reporting of assaults.
In the report, officials stress that more work needs to be done to eliminate the crime from the ranks.
The report for fiscal year 2017 says military services received 6,769 reports of sexual assault involving service members as either victims or subjects of criminal investigation, a 9.7 percent increase over the 6,172 reports made in fiscal 2016.
“Over the last decade, the department has made progress,” Elizabeth P. Van Winkle, the executive director of DoD’s Office of Force Resiliency, said in a Pentagon media briefing.
Van Winkle said fewer service members experience sexual assault than compared to previous years, and more service members than ever are “making the courageous decision to report their experiences and to receive restorative care.”
“While the progress we’ve seen provides some comfort, we neither take it for granted nor are we under any illusions that our work is done,” she said.
Of the 6,769 reports of sexual assault in fiscal 2017, 5,864 involved service member victims. The remaining 905 reports involved 868 victims who were U.S. civilians or foreign nationals and 37 victims for whom status data were not available, according to the report.
“Preventing sexual assault is our moral duty,” Defense Secretary James N. Mattis wrote in an agencywide memo for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. “By its nature, sexual assault is one of the most destructive factors in building a mission-focused military.”
The department encourages reporting of sexual assaults so the service member victims can be connected with restorative care and the perpetrators can be held responsible, Navy Rear Adm. Ann M. Burkhardt, the director of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, told reporters.
“Every sexual assault in the military is a failure to protect the men and women who have entrusted us with their lives,” she said. “We will not rest until we eliminate this crime from our ranks.”
Of the 5,864 service member victims for fiscal 2017, about 10 percent made a report for incidents that occurred to them before entering military service, according to the report.
The report says 5,277 service members made a report of sexual assault for an incident that occurred during military service, an increase of 10 percent from the 4,794 reports from service members received in fiscal 2016.
The full release and report can be read here.