COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: Women
Abuse by military recruiters
Toledo Blade
September 26, 2006
"WAR is hell," the saying goes. But what happens when even the road to war
is paved with hellish intentions?
Women who want nothing more than to serve their country in the armed forces
of the United States have to deal with a frontline menace more immediate
than al-Qaeda. According to an investigative report by the Associated Press
and studies by the Government Accountability Office, sexual misconduct
by military recruiters is a bigger problem than many imagine.
More than 100 women who showed an interest in joining the military were
victimized last year by their recruiters. At the same time, according to
the AP, 80 recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct with potential
enlistees.
A recent GAO report on overall recruiter wrongdoing (which includes
offenses beyond sexual misconduct) tallied a jump in cases from 400 in
2004 to 630 in 2005.
As deplorable as it is, this is not the sexual harassment that female
soldiers have occasionally endured once inside the U.S. military. This
is about recruiters who begin harassing and, in many cases, sexually
assaulting potential female enlistees before they've signed on the
dotted line.
The cases range from groping on the way to an exam to assaults in
government vehicles to rape on recruitment office couches.
Whether it is consensual sex (as some of the wayward recruiters insist) or
sexual crimes, the actions violate the trust the women had in the military
and undermine its integrity. With all sectors of the armed forces barely
reaching recruitment goals, it cannot afford to have this cancer spread
any further.
Startled and embarrassed by the statistics, the Defense Department has
announced that it will more closely scrutinize the behavior of
recruiters. That's not enough.
What's needed are deterrent policies with teeth. For starters, the military
should implement a demand by members of the House Armed Services Committee
and women's groups that male recruiters be barred from being alone with young
women.
The Pentagon also has to make it absolutely clear that it will not tolerate
such predatory behavior.
The trust of potential recruits, male or female, must be earned. By proving
to be untrustworthy, rogue recruiters do the military a disservice.
This archive consists of a topically organized selection of
articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed
publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen
material relevant to the work of