Washington, D.C.
Air Force servicemen on bases in the Pacific were accused of at least 92 rapes from 2001 to 2003, according to a new study by the service. Gen. William Begert, Air Force commander in the region, ordered the review after a string of recent reports of sexual abuse in the military. Out of 106 men named in the 92 cases, 14 were tried by court-martial, and seven of them were convicted. Forty were demoted or otherwise punished. Victims, most of them U.S. servicewomen, have accused the military of ignoring the problem, or even punishing them for reporting the crimes. Begert ordered several reforms, including greater assistance for victims. “We’ve got to take this on,” he said.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Book reviews: 'The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip' and 'Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service'Feature The tech titan behind Nvidia's success and the secret stories of government workers
-
Mario Vargas Llosa: The novelist who lectured Latin AmericaFeature The Peruvian novelist wove tales of political corruption and moral compromise
-
How to see the Lyrid meteor showerThe explainer A nice time to look to the skies
