Trump’s Policies Will Worsen the Military’s Sexual Assault Crisis
Particularly in a hierarchical institution such as the military, the leadership exemplifies the values that the institution expects all members to uphold.
During the Trump administration’s recent torrent of executive orders, the Navy paused sexual assault and prevention trainings in response to the administration’s demand to remove all DEI initiatives and programs. The U.S. armed forces are plagued by an epidemic of sexual assault, one of the most devastating markers of persistent gender inequality within the military. The Navy’s pause of just a few days signals the tenuous nature of protections for service members, especially women and minorities, who are by far the most numerous victims of assault.
The military’s sexual assault crisis speaks to the violence embedded within miliary institutions. Intimate partner violence, for instance, is disproportionately high among military and veterans populations. SAPRO, the Sexual Assault and Prevention Response Office of the Department of Defense (DOD), is the only resource that provides prevention and trainings on sexual assault and advocacy services to victims. It is the sole database for reporting and prevalence tracking of unwanted sexual contact in the military, making the Navy’s pause all the more alarming.
The U.S. military has been systematically tracking data via SAPRO since 2005 when the National Defense Authorization Act began to require information to be presented to Congress. However, independent reporting and data from organizations assisting sexual assault survivors indicate a spike in assaults immediately following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. This is the year the United States declared an official “Global War on Terror,” which the U.S. military still carries out operations for in 78 countries as of 2023. Also in 2001, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center officially designated April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
In any other workplace, if 1 in 4 women were sexually assaulted by their coworker or superior, there would be a national outrage.
This Sexual Assault Awareness month, we must talk about sexual assault as a disastrous cost of war.
The military’s epidemic of sexual assault is much worse than the DOD is willing to admit. Our Costs of War project research compared the Department of Defense’s data on sexual assault prevalence to independent (non-DOD) data to estimate sexual assault figures within the military from 2001 through 2023. We found that independent data suggest that actual sexual assault prevalence is 2 to 4 times higher than official DOD estimations.
The Trump administration’s policies will only worsen this crisis. Particularly in a hierarchical institution such as the military, the leadership exemplifies the values that the institution expects all members to uphold. It is notable that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was himself accused of sexual assault in 2017 and has a long track record of sexist behavior.
Since 2001, 24% of active-duty women and 1.9% of active-duty men in the U.S. military have experienced sexual assault. That is almost one-fourth of all women in the U.S. military, and given low reporting rates, it is likely even more. Fear of retaliation is one of the primary reasons service members do not report sexual assault, with data showing that service members are 12 times more likely to face retaliation than to see their offender convicted. Nationwide, 81% of women and 43% of men reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lifetime.
Experiences of gender inequality are most pronounced for women of color, who experience intersecting forms of racism and sexism and are one of the fastest-growing populations within the military. Furthermore, independent data also confirm that queer and trans service members face a disproportionately greater risk for sexual assault.
These numbers are staggering. In any other workplace, if 1 in 4 women were sexually assaulted by their coworker or superior, there would be a national outrage.
The sexual assault crisis should draw our attention to the contradiction of military policies aimed at greater gender and racial equity when this institution waged post-9/11 wars that displaced 38 million people, directly killed 929,000 people, and indirectly killed 4.5-4.7 million people worldwide. The wars waged by the U.S. are existentially linked both to the military as an institution and to the persistent racism and sexism within the U.S. Efforts such as the bipartisan, bicameral legislation recently introduced to help survivors of military sexual trauma (MST) more easily access care and benefits, as well as boost MST claims processing, must be resoundingly supported. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Minn.) said, “This goes far beyond administrative shortcomings at the VA; it’s a fundamental breach of our moral and constitutional duty to those who served.”
Although there have been consistent internal interventions and resources intended to address military sexual assault, this form of violence continues to occur, illustrating that reforms have not meaningfully transformed institutional patterns of abuse. Military officials have themselves described, in retrospect, that the military prioritized training and deploying troops to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars over confronting a clear institutional problem of sexual assault. In fact, the deliberate cover-up of harassments, assaults, and disappearances of service members to protect sexual predators and their enablers in the U.S. military has been evident in numerous high-profile cases over the years.
The goal is not solely to have higher reporting numbers or more initiatives, but to completely eradicate sexual assault from occuring. Sexual assault in the U.S. military is fundamentally and inextricably linked to fighting wars abroad. Important as they are, better reporting infrastructure or training and prevention programs within the DOD are not enough. This Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we should ask for more—an end to sexual assault and an end to endless wars.
