Help the Military Square Away Domestic and Sexual Violence

Every year amidst the "Save Your Ta-tas" and the barrage of pink soup labels at the Commissary (grocery store for you civilians) another awareness campaign gets lost while everyone is coyly posting "on the kitchen counter" in their Facebook status. This is one, however, that I really think could be boosted with awareness gimmicks, but somehow I don't think "green and purple, around my throat" would be as fun in 140 characters or less.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It is something I hear and read about a lot less than I do about Breast Cancer Awareness in October. Honestly I don't think either gets fair coverage when it is covered, but DV certainly isn't the hot pink ticket of the month.

But the military, and certainly the Army from where I am sitting on a U.S. Army Garrison overseas, picks up the ball and runs for the month, boosting its anti-violence awareness programs. The Defense Department and President Obama issued a proclamation making domestic violence a priority for the month of October (and the entire year), highlighting programs available to the military community and emphasizing the importance of early recognition and structural support for victims.

In his statement, President Obama stated that domestic violence is an equal opportunity offender across the United States, though I would dispute the validity of that claim through statistics found via the National Domestic Abuse Hotline website and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (pdf). While it is true that domestic and sexually based violence does affect everyone across gender, race, and economic backgrounds, it is naïve to ignore the facts that women are victims at much higher rates (even as we acknowledge that men are victims too). It is ignorant to pretend that race is not a factor, or that people in the lowest income brackets have the highest rates of instances.

A New York Times article catalogs the ways the military has, in the past, failed to protect victims of domestic violence from servicemembers. Everything from not enforcing protection orders which allows an assailant to visit and stalk victims unescorted to deploying someone convicted of a violent offense despite the Lautenberg amendment, which prevents people convicted of such crimes from owning or carrying firearms, with no exceptions for military members. Considering the high rate at which women are killed by guns as a result of intimate partner violence, it is in the military's best interest to enforce these laws.

This is why I think that one way to help the military with it's goal of curbing it's domestic violence problem is to urge Congress and the President to pass H.R. 840, the Military Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Act, which would set up directly in the Department of Defense an office of Victims' Advocates that "would facilitate access to services for victims of domestic or family violence, sexual assault, and stalking in the military," along with providing the framework to strengthen existing services, including enforcement, protection, and prosecution of assailants.

Photo Credit: House of Sims