Rape and sexual assaults in the military need more than ‘kangaroo court’ justice

05/03/2014

The Guardian


Informal and unaccountable ‘in-house’ procedures mean hundreds of allegations go unquestioned

The foreign secretary, William Hague, has called for an end to the use of sexual violence in war as part of the fine and timely crusade he has taken up alongside movie star Angelina Jolie. An inquest into the death of corporal Anne-Marie Ellement, a military policewoman who killed herself in 2011 after claiming she was raped by army colleagues, has fixed a spotlight on the issue of sexual violence within the British military. Today the coroner found Ellement killed herself in part due to bullying in the army and the effects of alleged rape. It has also emerged that of 200 allegations of rape and sexual assault between 2011 and 2013 in the military, there have only been 27 convictions.

To begin to understand the British military on any level it is best to start with a round of myth busting. Let us dispense with the idea that the British military is in a meaningful sense a slightly quaint but essentially harmonious family. Healthy families do not regularly inflict acts of sexual violence upon each other, and in the British forces rapes and sexual assaults seem to have become something of a banality. No comparable professional group in the UK appears to rival the military for rates of colleague-on-colleague sexual violence. I would argue this stems from a poisonous mix of unchallenged sexism, unaccountable power and an archaic military justice system.

One need not stoop to abstract identity politics to see that women are routinely diminished, downtrodden and sexualised out here in the real world. Yet in the military they are demeaned far more intensely. The general army consensus runs roughly as follows: despite the decorative value of certain specimens, “birds” are physically weak, consistently stupid and ditzy, and prone to skiving off physical training by claiming they have women problems. They can also smell nice, which is very distracting, and they talk excessively and won’t put out when required. All of which leaves a young warrior wondering what the point of having them around actually is?

Bear in mind that I say this after serving in a corps that actually contained women. Many military units do not. Does this kind of attitude lend itself to a culture of sexual violence? I would suggest it does. This kind of ingrained prejudice also goes some way to explaining the findings of a leaked 2012 survey of army personnel in which, quite regardless of rank, every female questioned said they had been a victim of sexual harassment. If we then add unaccountable power – the very stuff the military runs on – into the mix, the picture gets even bleaker.

If a single concept could capture the true face of the British military ethos, values and standards it is the expression “in-house”. Where possible, things are dealt with in-house. That is informally, unaccountably and far beyond official channels. The precise meaning of this unofficial cure-all is at times nebulous, but in my experience an in-house resolution is normally arrived at through a mix of subtle peer and command pressure, overt coercion and/or veiled threats. It may take the form of an, “Oh, the allegations will never be taken seriously”; or occasionally you might be told, “Speaking out will just damage the team”; or a cheeky, “Once you set this ball in motion, it’s going to affect your career” may be applied. And this is if you try to go through your own chain of command – which means your immediate superiors. Bear in mind that it is very often in the case of military sexual violence that a senior ranking male takes advantage of a junior ranking female. This may mean that a victim, sure that they will suffer for speaking out, never even considers raising the allegation. If they do resolve to press on then they put themselves at the dubious mercies of the Royal Military Police and the military justice system.

Say you are a servicewoman or – let’s not shy away from the great unmentionable – a serviceman who has been raped, the spectacle of a court martial with its proven low conviction rates awaits you. If you are one of those people who thinks Blackadder Goes Forth can’t tell you anything about the British military, I encourage you to attend a court martial. They are open to the public, though this is not advertised – such things are generally kept in-house. Indeed, by taking the official path you make yourself prisoner of a system which even some military officers consider to be “kangaroo courts … biased and partisan tribunals bounding inexorably towards predetermined conclusions”.

So what can be done? The British military, largely discredited as a fighting force by the Afghan debacle, is supposedly on a stretch of official downtime known as a “strategic pause”. Taking a gradualist line, this might be the perfect moment for some honest reflection, education and transparent reform. Perhaps for a start the army could do something as radical as stop retaining convicted sexual offenders. But clearly such a campaign needs serious, high-profile backing. Perhaps Hague would consider putting the argument to his famous comrade that it is worth extending their very worthy anti-rape campaign to include our armed forces here at home.


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