The issue of sexual assault in the United States military has never been more prevalent, with service members proclaiming a lack of confidence in the system established to punish offenders.
Reports of sexual assaults in the military in 2021 spiked 13% from the previous fiscal year, according to a report released by the Department of Defense on Thursday.
In the Army, reports climbed 25.6% from 2020 to 2021, while reported incidents in the Navy increased by 9.2% when compared with the year prior. Both the Air Force and the Marines saw a smaller jump of approximately 2%.
What’s more, an alarming 8.4% of female service members faced unwanted sexual contact in 2021, the highest rate since the department began tracking figures in 2006. For men, that stat stands around 1.5%.
Overall, the military received 8,866 reports of sexual assault in fiscal year 2021, according to the report. The previous year, the military received 7,916 reports.
In terms or reporting such incidents, only 39% of women in the military said they believed they would be treated with dignity and respect following an incident. It marks a drastic drop from 2018, when the figure stood at around 66%. And just 34% said they trusted the military to protect their privacy after reporting incidents, according to the data.
“These numbers are tragic, and extremely disappointing. On an individual level, it is devastating to conceptualize that these numbers mean that over 35,000 service members’ lives and careers were irrevocably changed by these crimes,” Elizabeth Foster, executive director of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Resiliency, told Reuters.
“Every incident has a ripple effect across the unit and impacts unit cohesion, ability to trust and distracts from the critical mission at hand.”
