Associated Press reports on Senate's Peace Corps Safety Hearings
Senate panel examines Peace Corps safety
FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The director of the Peace Corps defended his organization's security policies before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday, even as a congressional investigator said there was room for improvement.
The Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing, chaired by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., was prompted in part by reports in the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News last year that the number of reported assaults on volunteers more than doubled from 1991 to 2001.
Yet even as the number of assaults overseas climbed, the newspaper reported, the Peace Corps continued to jeopardize many volunteers by sending them to live alone in risky areas without adequate housing or supervision.
Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez told the subcommittee that crime against volunteers has decreased "in a number of categories" in the last two or three years.
Vasquez said that when he was hired in 2002, he created a new Office of Safety and Security, and added 80 full-time safety and security staff.
But Jess Ford, director of International Affairs and Trade for the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, said that while some categories of crime had decreased over the last couple of years, others have remained the same.
In a 2002 report, the GAO faulted the Peace Corps for inconsistent efforts to safeguard volunteers. "Since the report, the Peace Corps has implemented many of the suggestions," Ford told the panel.
Congress is considering legislation by Sens. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., that would create an ombudsman to handle assault complaints and make the new Office of Safety and Security permanent.
A similar bill passed the House a few weeks ago.
Vasquez said his agency has not calculated the cost of the legislation, but said it would be "very, very substantial."
President Bush has proposed doubling the number of Peace Corps volunteers in the next five years. Last year, more than 7,500 volunteers served in 71 countries, the most volunteers since the 1970s.
Senators on the panel, formally known as the subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs, said that the federal government will have to match that expansion with increased security.
"The question is how do we double in size and still remain committed to safety?" Coleman, said after the hearing. "What kind of dollars will it take?"
"I have not been satisfied with the level of funding," said Coleman, who supports the president's plan. "This is money well spent. This is the best face of America, at a time when we need to have a good face out there."
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Fred Frommer can be reached at ffrommer(at)ap.org
