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By HELEN BENEDICT - Published: May 26, 2008
THIS Memorial Day, as an ever-increasing number
of mentally and physically wounded soldiers
return from Iraq, the Department of Veterans
Affairs faces a pressing crisis: women
traumatized not only by combat but also by
sexual assault and harassment from their fellow
service members. Sadly, the department is
failing to fully deal with this problem.
Women make up some 15 percent of the United
States active duty forces, and 11 percent of the
soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third
of female veterans say they were sexually
assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71
percent to 90 percent say they were sexually
harassed by the men with whom they served.
This sort of abuse drastically increases the
risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress
disorder. One study found that female soldiers
who were sexually assaulted were nine times more
likely to show symptoms of this disorder than
those who weren’t. Sexual harassment by itself
is so destructive, another study revealed, it
causes the same rates of post-traumatic stress
in women as combat does in men. And rape can
lead to other medical crises, including
diabetes, asthma, chronic pelvic pain, eating
disorders, miscarriages and hypertension.
The threat of post-traumatic stress has risen
in recent years as women’s roles in war have
changed. More of them now come under fire,
suffer battle wounds and kill the enemy, just as
men
do.
As women return for repeat tours, usually
redeploying with their same units, many must go
back to
war with the same man (or men) who abused them.
This leaves these women as threatened by their
own
comrades as by the war itself. Yet the
combination of sexual assault and combat has
barely been
acknowledged or studied.
Last month, when the RAND Corporation released
the biggest non-military survey of the mental
health of troops since 2001, it unwittingly
reflected this lack of research. The survey
found that
women suffer from higher rates of post-traumatic
stress disorder and depression than men do, but
it neglected to look into why this might be, and
asked no questions about abuse from fellow
soldiers. Terri Tanielian, the project’s
co-editor, told me that RAND needs more money to
explore
these higher rates of trauma among women.
As the more than 191,500 women who have served
in the Middle East since 2001 return home, they
will increasingly flood the Veterans Affairs
system. To ask those who need help for
post-traumatic
stress disorder to turn to a typical Veterans
Affairs hospital, built in the 1950s and
designed to
treat men, is untenable. Women who have been
raped or sexually assaulted often cannot face
therapy
groups or medical facilities full of men.
At the moment, the Department of Veterans
Affairs operates only six inpatient
post-traumatic
stress disorder programs specifically for women.
And although all 153 department-run hospitals
will treat women, only 22 have stand-alone
women’s clinics that offer a full range of
medical and
psychological services.
This number of clinics may seem adequate for the
1.7 million female veterans currently at home,
especially since they represent only 7.2 percent
of all veterans at the moment, but it isn’t.
Many
clinics are miles from where soldiers live, and
many more are open only a few hours a week and
lack staff members trained to deal with sexual
assault, let alone assault combined with combat
trauma.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it plans
to open more clinics for post-traumatic stress
disorder, but how many will be only for women
remains undecided.
Women are the fastest-growing group of veterans,
and by 2020 they are projected to account for 20
percent of all veterans under the age of 45. Not
all of these women will have suffered sexual
assault, but many will have medical or
psychological needs that conventional department
hospitals
cannot meet.
The Department of Veterans Affairs must open
more comprehensive women’s health clinics,
designate
more facilities for women who have endured both
combat and military sexual trauma and finance
more
support groups specifically for female combat
veterans. The best way to honor all of our
soldiers
is to do what we can to help them mend. |
