ABC Investigative Team Honored for Peace Corps Sexual Assault Mismanagement Piece

The winners of George Polk Awards in Journalism for 2011 were announced on Sunday by Long Island University, according to the New York Times. Among the winners was the team of reporters from ABC News who covered the Kate Puzey story as well as mismanaged sexual assault cases in Peace Corps which aired last January. Here is the snippet from the New York Times:

The award for television reporting went to Brian Ross and Anna Schecter of ABC News for an investigation of the murder of Kate Puzey, a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, in 2009. The Polk judges said they “uncovered a systemic failure to protect Peace Corps volunteers who were victims of sexual assault and the whistle-blowers who tried to report the incidents.”

Becoming Educated About the Issue of Sexual Violence

Over the last several months, with increasing awareness and particularly media attention to the issue of sexual violence against Peace Corps Volunteers, it has become clear that there is a need for education about this issue for those inside and outside the Peace Corps community.

Today, the Kojo Nnamdi show, a well-respected radio show on the DC NPR affiliate WAMU, interviewed Peace Corps Director Williams about The Peace Corps at 50. Part of the show discussed sexual violence against Volunteers and Jess Smochek, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who testified at the May 10th Congressional hearing, spoke about this issue on air. This is clearly an issue where many people are passionate.



There are many opinionated comments left on blogs and websites regarding this issue. One example of the need for education includes the following comment left on the Kojo Nnamdi show website:

"...it's partially the responsibility of the volunteer to educate themselves about the country they are going to serve in. Additionally, if the volunteer is uncomfortable or threatened in their site, it's also their responsibility to bring that to PC's attention in that country. "
- Comment left on the show site for the NPR WAMU Kojo Nnamdi show

As an organization, First Response Action advocates for improved response from Peace Corps in-country and in DC to support Volunteers. This comment is an example of victim blaming and removes Peace Corps' response from the equation. All responsibility is placed on the Volunteer to learn about the country, which in this context, is inferred that learning about the country will keep Volunteers safe. These two items - sexual violence and knowledge of country - do not have a direct connection to deterring sexual violence. Additionally, learning about a country or culture and living in it are two different things.

First Response Action has received numerous testimonies that state that women who reported harassment, feeling uncomfortable or threatened were ignored. Women have said that they repeatedly reported harassment, which can be a precursor to rape or sexual assault, only to have Peace Corps staff in-country tell them that it's 'no big deal' or that they're making too much of an issue or that it's just the culture. Once incidents are reported, the owness then falls to Peace Corps to respond and follow-through in an appropriate way about the reports, keeping the Volunteer's safety in mind at all times. ALL Volunteer reports need to be taken seriously and handled properly so as not to put the Volunteer at further risk while the issue is being managed and investigated.





A caller to the Kojo Nnamdi show whose son served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia in the late 90s and in Nepal in the early 2000's called to remark about what she thought about her son's experiences in Peace Corps regarding women and safety:

"I found that the American women volunteers were very naive. They've been brought up in a society where they feel safe, they think they can do anything. I think the Peace Corps needs to train these women to help understand the cultures they're in."

I want to make a point very clear: The problem of sexual assault is NOT based in women's actions. NO victim is to blame for the assaults thrust upon them. There is, however, a problem with female victims consistently being blamed for the harassment, assaults or rapes that they have been forced to endure. The myth is that women are assaulted because they wore culturally inappropriate clothing, they walked at night or they 'asked for it' by being in a big city or by drinking. The truth is that women who are assaulted in Peace Corps have been asleep, jogging, at home, working or spending time with friends. It doesn't matter what a woman is wearing. Uneducated comments purport these myths and stifle women's rights.

Sometimes victims can't say 'no.' If a victim is asleep or incapacitated, they are unable to consent for sexual activity. The absence of 'no' does not equal consent (see chart below). Perpetrators will often use fear to threaten victims into a very coercive and manipulative submission - i.e. by the perpetrator saying "don't say anything or I'll kill you." (First Response Action has received testimony from women who were told variations of this phrase during their attack.) For all victims, the lack of verbal or physical resistance because of force, threat of force or fear does not equal consent. The neurobiological response to trauma is to freeze, so many victims are unable to speak or fight off the person(s) attacking them. For more about this issue, Karen Moldovan at the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault recommends "Yes Means Yes!" Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti. Within a Peace Corps context, Volunteers serve in countries where multiple languages are spoken and understood. Depending on the situation, the attacker may not speak or understand English, adding to the complexity of sexual violence in Peace Corps.

Provided by the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault

A blog called Can You Relate? posted a cheeky but true post about 'rape prevention tips' that is definitely worth a read. The tips are aimed at the victimizers who drug and rape women. For example, one of the ten tips is "5. When you encounter a woman who is asleep, the safest course of action is to not rape her."

While this may seem shocking to some to write or read, people need to be educated about perpetrators who use this tactic. Perpetrators are looking for weakness or a vulnerability they can exploit to overtake a victim. Many victims know their attacker and attackers often groom victims to gain access. Rape is about power and control. The act of someone raping a woman in her sleep is completely exploitative and clearly a conscious decision on the behalf of the perpetrator. A female Peace Corps Volunteer could be well-traveled, well-integrated and well-informed about issues of sexual violence and be raped in her sleep. The key in the situation is Peace Corps' response.

First Response Action has heard from many women who were asleep when their attacks occurred. Some of these women were blamed or called 'difficult' Volunteers or 'risky' Volunteers. This victim-blaming culture is pervasive in the Peace Corps community and many women who were great Volunteers come back scarred by the response they received from Peace Corps following an assault. One woman who reported being constantly sexually harassed by a member of her host family, and whose reports were consistently rebuffed by in-country staff, was then raped in her sleep by the same member of her host family whom she'd been reporting to Peace Corps. I write about this situation not to shock anyone but to give an example that there is much more education needed on the part of those who think that rape and sexual assault are to be pinned on the victim without giving thought to the perpetrator who willingly overtook their victim to commit such a horrendous act.

Opinionated, victim blaming comments stem from a lack of knowledge as well as the awful rape myths that persist globally, even in American culture. I encourage you to learn more about the issue of sexual violence. Learn about perpetrators. Learn about how victims have been treated following an assault while serving as Peace Corps Volunteers. I also encourage you to start dialogue among friends or even email us at firstresponseaction@gmail.com to share your thoughts and learn a little more. Visit the National Sexual Violence Resource Center at www.nsvrc.org to learn more. Increased education about this issue can lead to improved support for Volunteers who are victims of sexual and physical violence while in Peace Corps.

First Response Action applauds the steps that Peace Corps is taking to rectify the issue of inadequate support and their commitment to changing the culture of victim blaming. We have met with Peace Corps staff on many occasions and they keep us informed about their progress on this important issue. First Response Action is advocating for a safer, stronger, better Peace Corps. None of us are out to damage Peace Corps. We simply want better, sustainable treatment for Volunteers who become victims of crime.

Peace,
Casey
Founder, First Response Action

New York Times: Ex-Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: May 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and “helping the world.” She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang.

Jess Smochek, who was raped in Bangladesh in 2004, advocates for former Peace Corps volunteers who were sexually assaulted.

When she returned to the United States, the reception she received from Peace Corps officials was as devastating, she said, as the rape itself. In Bangladesh, she had been given scant medical care; in Washington, a counselor implied that she was to blame for the attack. For years she kept quiet, feeling “ashamed and embarrassed and guilty.”

Today, Ms. Smochek is among a growing group of former Peace Corps volunteers who are speaking out about their sexual assaults, prompting scrutiny from Congress and a pledge from the agency for reform. In going public, they are exposing an ugly sliver of life in the Peace Corps: the dangers that volunteers face in far-flung corners of the world and the inconsistent — and, some say, callous — treatment they receive when they become crime victims.

“These women are alone in many cases, and they’re in rough parts of the world,” said Representative Ted Poe, Republican of Texas, who says the Peace Corps’ promises do not go far enough and is sponsoring legislation to force changes in the way it treats victims of sexual assault. “We want the United States to rush in and treat them as a victim of crime like they would be treated here at home.”

Founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps has 8,655 volunteers and trainees, as young as 21 and as old as 86, serving in 77 countries. For most, service is, as the agency’s Web site boasts, “a life-defining leadership experience.”

Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Jess Smochek

But from 2000 to 2009, on average, 22 Peace Corps women each year reported being the victims of rape or attempted rape, the agency says. During that time, more than 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers reported sexual assaults, including 221 rapes or attempted rapes. Because sexual crimes often go unreported, experts say the incidence is likely to be higher, though they and the Peace Corps add that it is difficult to assess whether the volunteers face any greater risk overseas than women in the United States do.

On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will convene a hearing to examine what its chairwoman, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, called “serious crimes” committed against Peace Corps volunteers, including murder; in announcing the hearing, her office cited reports of “gross mismanagement of sexual assault complaints.”

Lois Puzey, whose daughter Kate was murdered in 2009 while posted in Benin, will testify. So will Ms. Smochek, now a board member of First Response Action, a fledgling advocacy group founded by another former volunteer, Casey Frazee. Ms. Frazee was sexually assaulted in South Africa in 2009 and came home, she said, determined to not “let the Peace Corps toss me off like I was an isolated incident.”

In an interview Monday, the director of the Peace Corps, Aaron S. Williams, said he was committed to revamping the agency’s practices to create a more “victim-centered approach.”

He insisted that it was safe for women to serve in the Peace Corps. “We do not place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments,” he said.

But he said the agency must modernize its procedures to “make sure that we provide compassionate care” to crime victims. Already, Mr. Williams has made some changes, including hiring a “victim’s advocate” who began work on Monday and signing an agreement with a nationally known rape crisis group to re-examine his organization’s training and policies.

The changes reflect the work of Ms. Frazee, who has spent the last 18 months tracking down Peace Corps sexual assault survivors by reaching out through social networking sites and her blog. Last year, her work drew the attention of the ABC News program “20/20,” which ran a segment on the women in January. In recent months, Ms. Frazee, 28, has collected more than two dozen affidavits from women, who have shared stories that Mr. Williams called “tragic.”

First Response Action coalition members Meg Long, Kate Finn and Casey Frazee

In interviews and documents, they paint a picture of what many call a “blame the victim” culture at the Peace Corps.

Jessica Gregg, who was drugged and sexually assaulted in 2007 in Mozambique, said a Peace Corps medical officer “made me write in my testimony that I was intoxicated” and suggested that “I willingly had sex with this guy.” She and a number of other women complained that a training video the Peace Corps uses places too much emphasis on the role of alcohol in sexual assaults; in response, Mr. Williams said the video would be replaced.

Many, like Kate Finn, who was raped in Costa Rica and now works in the district attorney’s office in Denver as a victim’s advocate, complain that they are not advised on how to prosecute their attackers; a 2010 survey of Peace Corps volunteers revealed that nearly 40 percent of those raped and 50 percent of those sexually assaulted did not report their attacks. Ms. Finn said that her attacker’s family was on the police force and that she “did not feel safe” reporting what had happened.

Still others say they are given inadequate information about counseling. Karestan Koenen, who sought therapy on her own and is now a psychologist who teaches at Columbia and Harvard, said she was shocked to discover that women today were confronting the same difficulties as she did when she was raped in 1991 in Niger.

“My own experience,” she said, “was that the treatment by the Peace Corps was worse than the rape.”

The women say Mr. Williams’s efforts, while promising, are not enough. They want Congress to pass legislation requiring, among other things, that the Peace Corps develop “sexual assault response teams” to collect forensic evidence and provide emergency health care and advocacy for victims after attacks. Mr. Williams said he was open to such legislation but has not committed to supporting it.

But whether such a bill would pass Congress is unclear. Representative Niki Tsongas, Democrat of Massachusetts, is co-sponsoring Mr. Poe’s bill, but other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday’s hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps — the legacy of a Democratic president — and cut its funding.

The women of First Response Action insist that was never their intention; they say they want to improve the Peace Corps, not destroy it. Ms. Smochek, now 30 and a graduate student, said her primary goal was to alert future volunteers, and in the process perhaps bring some solace to other sexual assault survivors “to let them know they are not alone.”

Harvard Expert Hearing Witness Interviews with ABC about Sexual Violence in Peace Corps

By ANNA SCHECTER

May 9, 2011

Karestan Koenen, a former Peace Corps volunteer who was raped while serving in the African country of Niger in the 1990s, says the Peace Corps' treatment of her in the aftermath "was like being raped all over again."

"I trusted the Peace Corps, I believed in the Peace Corps. And then [Peace Corps officials] did everything they could to blame me, to not provide adequate care, and even to provide care that was subsequently harmful to me," she told ABC News in a recent interview.

In an ABC News investigation that aired on "20/20," former Peace Corps volunteers alleged that they had been mistreated by the Peace Corps after they were victims of sexual assault while serving overseas. On Wednesday, Congress will convene a hearing about violence against Peace Corps volunteers and what critics call the organization's inadequate response.

Koenen, now an associate professor of trauma psychology at Columbia University and an adjunct at Harvard, had kept the rape a secret for years until she watched the January "20/20" report.

Koenen says she is speaking out to show that this is not a recent problem that is isolated to just a few women. "What's so horrifying to me now is that that nothing has changed," she said. "This has been going on for decades at least. People need to know that this is a chronic problem that the Peace Corps has been unable and unwilling to change," she said.

Koenen grew up in rural New Jersey, and had never heard of Niger until she learned she was accepted into the Peace Corps and assigned to a post there. At the time, Koenen was a 22-year-old graduate of Wellesley College with dreams of pursuing a career as a development economist focused on sub-Saharan Africa. As soon as she received news of her assignment she quit her job at the Federal Reserve Bank and, in June 1991, headed for Niger, then the poorest country in the world.

Koenen and the other volunteers ran into danger almost as soon as they arrived. During the 11-week in-country training session, her bunkmate was raped and two male volunteers were assaulted by a group of local men. Koenen was robbed during the incident, but continued with the program.

Once at her post in southern Niger, she was constantly harassed by local men, but she said she did not fear for her physical safety.

Continued here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/raped-peace-corps-volunteer/story?id=13537674