Coast Guard: Rape Survivors Should Not be Locked Up in Janitor Closets

See the photo above? That is a picture of a janitor closet. That is where you store your brooms and not where you lock up a rape survivor in for reporting a brutal rape. However that is exactly what one Chief in the United States Coast Guard did.

According to witnesses the alleged victim was bruised up and "bleeding from the head".

In the rape survivor own words: http://mydutytospeak.com/2011/02/04/rape-in-the-united-states-coast-guard-station-burlington/

"They wanted me to make sure that I understood how serious the charges were. I said yes. Then they said that they will investigate…so they put me in solitary confinement as their ways to separate us. One problem, we do not have a holding facility on that base so they threw me in the janitor closet. ... I was curled up with my head to my knees sitting on the floor between the armory and a bottle of bleach."

The Chief that did this to her is still serving in a leadership position in the Coast Guard and has never been reprimanded, not even with a negative page 7 (official letter of counseling).

Rape is a serious crime that affects as many as one in three women in the Coast Guard. Survivors of rape in the Coast Guard are coming forward with gruesome accounts of what happened AFTER they report a rape often at the hands of those that they were required to report rape to including the Officer in Charge (OINC) or a Victim Advocate. The Coast Guard claims that there have been many initiatives to end what is now a sexual assault epidemic in the United States Coast Guard. They claim that because they hired a Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Coordinator and trained roughly 100 "victim advocates" that the problem is going to go away in itself.

According to the Military Rape Crisis Center, an organization started by a Coast Guard rape survivor while on Active Duty because of the lack of support that she received from her command, states that 92% of all who report rape in the Coast Guard are involuntarily discharged from service. This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE. The same study shows that less than 10% of all rape allegations end up in "some sort of judicial punishment". According to the study reports of early retirement (with full benefits) or be restricted on base for several weeks are often given to convicted perpetrator in lieu of prison. These punishments also does not require the convicted perpetrator to be required to register as a sex offender. The problem of sexual assault is not going to go away as long as you allow rapists to go into the community or back into the ranks to recommit these violent hate crimes.

We demand the Coast Guard to take seriously sexual assault and rape by examining all prior rape allegations, even if the survivor and alleged perpetrator has left the service, if the survivor wants.

We demand all those who are accused of "covering up" a rape to be held accountable.  We want all rape survivors to be treated with respect. 

We demand rape to be taken seriously in the United States Coast Guard. By the first person's accounts the Coast Guard does NOT have a zero-tolerance policy or take sexual assault allegations seriously.

WE DEMAND THE UNITED STATES COAST GUARD TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHAT RAPE SURVIVORS HAS SAID HAPPENED TO THEM AND TO DO THE RIGHT THING FOR CURRENT, PAST AND FUTURE SURVIVORS OF COAST GUARD SEXUAL TRAUMA.

We demand rape survivors to be allowed on military bases for attending events open to the community or private events that they been invited to such as a Coast Guard Auxiliary meeting. If a veteran is rated at 100% disabled they should be allowed on a military base to shop at the Exchange and utilize other programs that they are entitled to.

We demand a higher prosecution rate for sex crimes in the Coast Guard. One that is similar to the civilian prosecution for similar crimes which is at 40% would end up in a prosecution that would send them to prison.

Rape survivors should not lose their careers because they reported a RAPE. A rape survivor should not have to sign a DD-214 PRIOR to his or her end of contract unless they choose to.

UPDATED October 14. My Duty to Speak, the largest website for survivors of Military Sexual Trauma survivors to share their personal stories has put Chief Gregg Marsili on the Wall of Shame for placing a rape survivor in a janitor closet. The United States Coast Guard dismissed the advocacy work from the United States Congress and instead of working to protect women in the Coast Guard from this Chief, they instead honored him in an attempt to "shut up the Congress." The Congress and all who advocated are pissed and we are working even harder now to bring this message across to help ALL Coast Guard rape survivors. The Coast Guard in this action has shown that they do not take sexual assault or rape allegations, nor care to protect rape survivors from rape apologists.

http://mydutytospeak.com/2011/10/14/wall-of-shame-chief-gregg-marsili-united-states-coast-guard/

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