Washington, March 17: The number of reports of sexual assault in the US military – against both fellow troops and civilians – rose by 11 percent in 2009, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday, which includes a 16 percent increase in reported assaults occurring in combat areas, principally Iraq and Afghanistan.
The report’s findings cited 141 incidents in Iraq.
The department recorded 3,230 complaints of sexual assault in fiscal year 2009, which involved members of the military — either as victims or as perpetrators, it said.
That number compared to 2,908 recorded in 2008, which had represented an increase of eight percent over the previous year, according to an annual report.
The Defense Department attributed the spike in part to efforts to encourage victims to report such assaults.
Pentagon officials have said they believed sexual assaults were underreported and have launched a campaign to raise awareness of the problem.
Victims who are military personnel can report an assault without having to notify their commanding officers or police. That “restricted” reporting means the case does not trigger an investigation or military trial.
Out of 2,284 sexual assault investigations, the accused were punished in 983 cases, the report said. Of those, 42 percent were prosecuted under a court-martial, it said.
In the report, sexual assault was defined as rape, sodomy and other unwanted sexual contact, including touching of private body parts. It did not include sexual harassment.
A Pentagon report in 2009 found one in three female service members are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment.
—Agencies