Washington, DC—(ENEWSPF)—May 7, 2013. Today, the Department of Defense released the fiscal 2012 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military and announcing a series of actions to prevent and respond to sexual assault in the armed forces.
Annually, as required by the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, the department released Fiscal Year 2012 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military. To date, this is the ninth report DoD has issued.
In fiscal year 2012, there were a total of 3,374 reports of sexual assault involving service members as victims or subjects, an increase from the 3,192 reports received in fiscal 2011. These reports involved offenses ranging from abusive sexual contact to rape.
“This is a defining time for our entire military community,” said Maj. Gen. Gary S. Patton, director, DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. “Our continuing focus is on the health and safety of our service members. Our troops take care of each other on the battlefield better than any military in the world, and now we must extend that same ethos of care to combating sexual assault. Based on long-standing traditions of excellence and leadership, I am confident in our ability to eliminate sexual assault from our military environment.”
The annual report also includes findings from the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey,a joint effort between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Justice, and DoD. This survey used a common approach to assess representative samples from the civilian, military, and military spouse populations. After adjusting for age and marital status differences between the samples, survey results showed risk of contact sexual violence is the same for military and civilian women in the past year, the past three years, and their lifetime.
The 2012 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, which also includes findings from the 2012 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of active duty and reserve component members, is available at http://www.sapr.mil.
Source: defense.gov
