Women in the U.S. military may be nearly 10 times as likely to experience sexual assault or harassment then men in the military, a new study suggests.
The study, conducted by researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), surveyed more than 20,000 men and women who were recent veterans and who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Of these veterans, about 41% of women reported suffering some form of sexual harassment during their time in the military. Only 4% of men said they suffered sexual harassment during their service. About 9% of women and less than 1% of men said they were assaulted.
The researchers assessed sexual trauma in the military as part of a health survey of recent veterans conducted between 2009 and 2011. One question asked whether service members received uninvited or unwanted sexual attention such as touching, cornering, pressure for sexual favors, or inappropriate verbal remarks. Another question asked if anyone ever used force or the threat of force to initiate unwanted sexual activity.
Among women, Marines and Navy veterans had increased risk for sexual trauma during their military service compared with Air Force veterans.
In the general population, 1 in 5 U.S. women and 1 in 71 men say they have been raped at some point in their lifetime. In both genders, about 1 in 20 people experience other forms of sexual coercion and unwanted sexual advances, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Research among both civilians and those who have served in the military consistently find that rates of sexual assault and sexual harassment are higher among women than among men," lead study author Shannon Barth of the VA said in an email interview with Reuters Health.
"Despite the higher prevalence among women veterans, given the far greater number of men who have served in the military, there are significant numbers of both men and women who have experienced (sexual trauma)," she added.
One limitation of the study is that researchers relied only on information from the survey.
The study appeared in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
