Rape is a persistent problem for women (and men) in the U.S. Coast Guard. A Senate reports suggest the Coast Guard needs to do more to stop rapes and sexual assaults within its ranks. Something the organization is loath to admit. Pictured here: A U.S. Coast Guard recruiting poster from the 1950’s-60’s encouraging women to join its ranks.
Buried deep within the hundreds of pages of a 2014 Senate Appropriations Bill for the Department of Homeland Security was mention of the persistent problem of sexual assault and rapes in the United States Coast Guard.
“Like other military branches, the Coast Guard continues to struggle with sexual assault within its ranks. The Coast Guard had 141 incident reports of sexual assaults in fiscal year 2012, up from 83 in fiscal year 2011 and 75 in fiscal year 2010. While the Coast Guard has enhanced training and awareness throughout the service in recent years, much more needs to be done to prevent and stop these incidents. The Committee notes that the Coast Guard has just one permanent headquarters staff billet within the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response [SAPR] program while the field is served by collateral duty sexual assault response coordinators. In order to strengthen the Coast Guard’s SAPR program and establish a permanent infrastructure in the field, the Committee includes $1,000,000 for six regional coordinators, which will allow for a full range of prevention strategies to be deployed, establishment of sexual assault response teams in every region, and additional training to expand the number of victim advocates across the widely dispersed population of the Coast Guard.
The Committee also commends the Coast Guard for its commitment to align its policies to ensure its service members are afforded the protections provided by the Defense STRONG Act as enacted by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, (Public Law 112-81). The Coast Guard shall report to the Committee on the implementation status of these new policies within 60 days of the date of enactment of this act.
The Coast Guard shall also provide to the Committee the annual report required by section 217 of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010″ (source: Senate Appropriations Bill 113-077).
We tried on numerous occasions to contact the Coast Guard for comment on this matter and officials ignored repeated emails and telephone calls to address questions related to the ongoing problem of rape within the organization.
In 2013 another Coast Guard rape as reported (see article: Coast Guard Rape Case to be taken to South Carolina Court Martial http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/coast-guard-rape_n_3537637.html).
The Coast Guard lags in efforts to address this problem of rape (see article: In the Coast Guard, cases of rape get washed away http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/coast-guard-rape_n_3537637.html).
Today’s U.S. Coast Guard, with nearly 42,000 men and women on active duty, is a unique force that carries out an array of civil and military responsibilities touching almost every facet of the U.S. maritime environment.