‘US military cannot fix sexual attacks’

The Pentagon cannot be trusted to handle the problem of sexual assault cases in the US military, a US representative says.

œThe military leadership at this point has shown they™re incapable of fixing this problem,” said Tammy Duckworth, a US Representative for the State of Illinois, on Sunday, while responding to a new Pentagon report regarding the increase in sexual assaults in the US armed forces.

The report said almost three sexual assaults including rape occur every hour, to the alarming level of 70 per day in the US military.

The report added that 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012, a 35-percent increase since 2010 when 19,000 such cases were reported.

About one out of five military women said they had been the victims of unwanted sexual assault by another service member since joining the military, according to a survey conducted in 2011.

œI want the military to be a place where women can succeed and thrive the way I was able to,” Duckworth added, while calling for a new system to replace the Uniform Code of Military Justice when investigating sexual assault cases.

The overall rate of sexual assault in the US military may be higher, as many victims fail to report out of fear of vengeance or lack of justice under the military™s system of prosecution, the report added.

Many high-ranking US military commanders have recently been convicted and relieved of duties for multiple sexual offenses and corruption over the years.

On May 6, authorities said Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Krusinski, director of the sexual assault prevention program for the US Air Force, has himself been detained for sexually assaulting a woman not far from the military headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

GMA/SS