"The purpose of this Brief is to describe the number and characteristics of women veterans in the United States and California. This information is excerpted from the CRB Report, California’s Women Veterans: The Challenges and Needs of Those Who Served, August 2009. The full report is available at http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/09/09-009.pdf.
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Sexual Assault Left Out of Military’s PTSD Reform
From July, 2010:
On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced reforms to the rules for claiming veterans’ benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder. The White House says the move will ease the burden of proof that veterans face when trying to prove the mental wounds of war. But the new regulations are silent on the suffering of women who have experienced sexual trauma in the military.
The new rules essentially give vets a greater benefit of the doubt by simplifying the process for proving a PTSD claim, as long as a VA-approved psychologist or psychiatrist affirms that it is “consistent with the places, types, and circumstances of the Veteran’s service.”
But the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), an advocacy group for current and former military women, has warned that the new criteria do not apply equally to the process of proving sexual assault related to military service.
Despite study after study showing that military sexual trauma (MST) is both widespread and underreported in all branches of the military, the VA has been accused of ignoring many cases of sexual harassment, rape and other sexual crimes that fall outside the conventional categories of combat injuries. The new PTSD regulations thus offer little comfort to the traumatized victims of sexual abuse, who already struggle with stigma, shame and fear.
Anuradha K. Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of SWAN, recently testified before Congress:
Bhagwati argued in a New York Times roundtable last week, “The V.A.’s double standard when it comes to survivors of sexual trauma is shameful. We’ve got nothing to celebrate until all sources of P.T.S.D. are considered equal.”
The debate will likely continue as Congress weighs the COMBAT PTSD Act, which would further ease the claims process by enabling vets to rely on evidence provided by private mental health workers rather than just VA-approved clinicians, who may be biased in their diagnosis, or inaccessible to veterans living in underserved communities.
For now, it looks like survivors of military sexual trauma will continue to face discrimination when they come forward, whether to seek justice or just to receive basic mental health care. Their silent struggle for equity shows that for all the talk about soldiers being equal when they wear the uniform, race and gender still color the military experience in unspoken ways.
Photo: SWAN
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced reforms to the rules for claiming veterans’ benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder. The White House says the move will ease the burden of proof that veterans face when trying to prove the mental wounds of war. But the new regulations are silent on the suffering of women who have experienced sexual trauma in the military.
The new rules essentially give vets a greater benefit of the doubt by simplifying the process for proving a PTSD claim, as long as a VA-approved psychologist or psychiatrist affirms that it is “consistent with the places, types, and circumstances of the Veteran’s service.”
But the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), an advocacy group for current and former military women, has warned that the new criteria do not apply equally to the process of proving sexual assault related to military service.
Despite study after study showing that military sexual trauma (MST) is both widespread and underreported in all branches of the military, the VA has been accused of ignoring many cases of sexual harassment, rape and other sexual crimes that fall outside the conventional categories of combat injuries. The new PTSD regulations thus offer little comfort to the traumatized victims of sexual abuse, who already struggle with stigma, shame and fear.
Anuradha K. Bhagwati, a former Marine captain and executive director of SWAN, recently testified before Congress:
Filing for disability compensation for MST is universally considered a traumatic, agonizing, and cruel experience. Many survivors describe the process of re-writing one’s personal narrative for a VA claim as just as traumatic as the original rape or harassment. VBA claims officers nationwide have proven themselves entirely inept when dealing with MST claims. Claims are routinely rejected, even with sufficient evidence of a stressor and a corroborating diagnosis from a VA health provider. Many survivors’ claims are rejected because of VBA’s lack of knowledge about sexual violence…Going forward, the service women who will be affected by the new VA policy are disproportionately women of color. As Colorlines reported back in 2008, women of color in the military may struggle against racial barriers within their own ranks; when sexual assault or abuse enters the picture, inequalities in access to VA services could be psychologically crippling.
Current VBA policy is forcing women and men with insufficient evidence of their assault and harassment to suffer in silence and shame, to numb their pain through use of substances, and to take or attempt to take their own lives.
Bhagwati argued in a New York Times roundtable last week, “The V.A.’s double standard when it comes to survivors of sexual trauma is shameful. We’ve got nothing to celebrate until all sources of P.T.S.D. are considered equal.”
The debate will likely continue as Congress weighs the COMBAT PTSD Act, which would further ease the claims process by enabling vets to rely on evidence provided by private mental health workers rather than just VA-approved clinicians, who may be biased in their diagnosis, or inaccessible to veterans living in underserved communities.
For now, it looks like survivors of military sexual trauma will continue to face discrimination when they come forward, whether to seek justice or just to receive basic mental health care. Their silent struggle for equity shows that for all the talk about soldiers being equal when they wear the uniform, race and gender still color the military experience in unspoken ways.
Photo: SWAN
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
Males Can't Be "Forcibly Raped"-- According to the FBI
In a belated stroke of political expediency, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and company have replaced the "forcible rape" term in their still-problematic "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" with "rape" so that it covers all forms of it. Maybe the FBI should consider following suit.
The top law enforcement agency in the land uses this term in its Uniform Crime Report (UCR) to tally up how many violent (as opposed to, say, statutory) rapes have occurred nationwide. But according to this FBI FAQ on the matter, the UCR excludes male victims. (And I swear on a stack of various religious texts that the only editing I've done here is deleting broken links):
For UCR reporting purposes, can a male be raped?
No. The UCR Program defines forcible rape as "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will." In addition, "By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending...
Click here to read the entire article...
See http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/02/in_a_belated_stroke_of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28ColorLines%29
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
The top law enforcement agency in the land uses this term in its Uniform Crime Report (UCR) to tally up how many violent (as opposed to, say, statutory) rapes have occurred nationwide. But according to this FBI FAQ on the matter, the UCR excludes male victims. (And I swear on a stack of various religious texts that the only editing I've done here is deleting broken links):
For UCR reporting purposes, can a male be raped?
No. The UCR Program defines forcible rape as "The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will." In addition, "By definition, sexual attacks on males are excluded from the rape category and must be classified as assaults or other sex offenses depending...
Click here to read the entire article...
See http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/02/in_a_belated_stroke_of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28ColorLines%29
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
DOJ Grant Opportunity:Education, Training and Enhanced Services to End Violence Against and Abuse of Women With Disabilities
Sponsor: Violence Against Women Office/Department of Justice
Program Number: 66106
Title: Education, Training and Enhanced Services to End Violence Against and Abuse of Women With Disabilities
E-mail: ovw.disabilities@usdoj.gov
Program URL: http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/docs/women-disabilities.pdf
SYNOPSIS: The Disability Education Grants program will provide
education and technical assistance in the form of training,
consultations, and information to organizations and programs that
provide services to individuals with disabilities and to domestic
violence programs providing shelter or related assistance. Examples
of organizations that may receive education and assistance include:
Disability-related service organizations; Domestic violence programs
(including shelters); Sexual assault programs (including rape crisis
centers); Independent Living Centers; and Faith- and community-based
organizations (which include services that are utilized by persons
with disabilities, but are not disability specific services, such as
libraries, public transportation, job training programs).
Deadline(s): 03/03/2011
03/17/2011
DEADLINE NOTE
Optional Letters of Intent to apply are due March 3, 2011. All
applicants should register online with Grants.gov by March 3, 2011.
All applications are due by March 17, 2011.
To apply to join, or to send comments and suggestions, contact Marc Dubin, Esq., Chair, at mdubin@pobox.com or at 305 896 3000.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)