2011.05.11: May 11, 2011: Readers of the NY Times Comment on the Story "Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape"
Peace Corps Online:
Peace Corps News:
Library:
Peace Corps: Sexual Assault and Harassment:
Sexual Assault and Harassment: Newest Stories:
2011.05.11: May 11, 2011: Rape victims recount Peace Corps Trauma to Congress :
2011.05.11: May 11, 2011: Readers of the NY Times Comment on the Story "Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape"
Readers of the NY Times Comment on the Story "Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape"
"As Peace Corps director, Mr. Shriver believed in volunteers and knew that the righteousness of their mission outweighed the dangers. That remains true today. The Corps is invited into countries because its no-strings-attached service is admired as a noble practice. As grass-roots ambassadors, Peace Corps volunteers put a human face on a powerful country whose image has been tarnished by propaganda. Volunteers live like natives, learn local languages and cultures, and help ordinary people achieve their goals for progress. The Peace Corps is soft power, and American altruism, at its best. Yet, in honor of Mr. Shriver, the Peace Corps should do more to promote the safety of its volunteers. These changes would help prevent future tragedies: (1) allow volunteers to live together (there is strength in numbers); (2) give volunteers allowances to hire watchmen (an inexpensive measure that provides local employment); (3) encourage volunteers to live with local people (as I did in Malawi); (4) place more volunteers in rural areas (urban centers have higher crime rates); (5) strictly protect volunteer confidentiality, so that whistle blowers like Kate Puzey are protected; (6) working with the State Department and host country governments, aggressively prosecute criminals who prey upon Peace Corps volunteers; and (7) provide comprehensive, long-term support to volunteers who are victimized. Peace Corps service is a calculated risk - a relatively small one. Within the Peace Corps, changes should be made to protect volunteers; Sargent Shriver would have wanted that. I hope that these changes, not a fearful backlash against the Peace Corps, will be the legacies of Jess Smochek and Kate Puzey."
Readers of the NY Times Comment on the Story "Peace Corps Volunteers Speak Out on Rape"
1.
Sandee
Durham, NC
May 11th, 2011
8:14 am
Senator Poe states, "We want the United States to rush in and treat them as a victim of crime like they would be treated here at home." I worked in the area of sexual assault for 13 years ...these women are being treated like they would be at home at least in many of our court systems and law enforcement agencies. Healthcare is the only reliably just and compassionate service at rape victim recieves, and that is if the woman has insurance. The way a rape victim is treated in the US is random. It depends where she is, and who the individual law enformcent personnel are that get called to 'assist' her, and whose particular courtroom she happens to have her case heard in.
Recommend Recommended by 175 Readers
2.
tyetma
Tampa
May 11th, 2011
8:14 am
The courage of these great women deserves every honor as the history of women moves forward in securing basic human rights.
Recommend Recommended by 93 Readers
3.
Mark
Canada
May 11th, 2011
8:15 am
Reading this, it looks as if the management culture at the Peace Corps is at least as primitive as that of the people who committed the crimes. This kind of thing doesn't get resolved by legislation, because then the legislation needs to be complemented with enforcement - an uncertain, time-consuming and cumbersome proposition. Dealing with such insensitivity requires a change of the management culture, which often means replacing the people in charge with others who can do the job and care.
Recommend Recommended by 124 Readers
4.
Paul Hennig
Kenmore, NY
May 11th, 2011
8:15 am
The response of the Peace Corps management to these rapes is very strange and totally unacceptable. For these women to be humiliated in this manner is little short of the psychologically twisted.
Recommend Recommended by 120 Readers
5.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Michael Buckler
Washington, D.C.
May 11th, 2011
8:16 am
On Jan. 18, 2011, the Peace Corps lost Sargent Shriver, its charismatic architect and first leader. The previous Friday, ABC News ran a grizzly story on violence against Peace Corps volunteers - Jess Smochek was gang-raped in Bangladesh in 2004; Kate Puzey was murdered in Benin in 2009. This raises the question: Has Mr. Shriver's Peace Corps become too dangerous for volunteers?
There's no question that in male-dominated, developing countries, the Peace Corps experience is often more harrowing for women than men. Approximately 0.5 percent of female volunteers become rape victims in the Peace Corps (during the two-year service commitment), a figure that is artificially low due to underreporting of sexual assaults (by comparison, 15 percent of American women are raped during their lifetimes). Much harder to track are inappropriate touches, stares, shouts and intimidation, which female volunteers endure on a daily basis.
When volunteers die (3 out of 10,000), the culprit is usually a motorized vehicle, not a disease or violent perpetrator. In Malawi, where I was a volunteer from 2006 to 2008, the roads are precarious, as rickety minibuses, overloaded tractor-trailers, private passenger vehicles and bicycles compete for space in a high-speed game of chicken. In sub-Saharan Africa, traffic deaths are second only to AIDS as the biggest killer of people ages 15 to 44.
Still, Peace Corps volunteers are much more likely to experience burglary or theft (5 percent and 9 percent of volunteers, respectively) than sexual assault or death. These statistics, from a 2009 Peace Corps report on safety, comport with my experience in Malawi, where petty property crime is common but violence occurs infrequently. Although no volunteer (to my knowledge) was raped or killed during my tour, the homes of several volunteers were burglarized.
As Peace Corps director, Mr. Shriver believed in volunteers and knew that the righteousness of their mission outweighed the dangers. That remains true today. The Corps is invited into countries because its no-strings-attached service is admired as a noble practice. As grass-roots ambassadors, Peace Corps volunteers put a human face on a powerful country whose image has been tarnished by propaganda. Volunteers live like natives, learn local languages and cultures, and help ordinary people achieve their goals for progress. The Peace Corps is soft power, and American altruism, at its best.
Yet, in honor of Mr. Shriver, the Peace Corps should do more to promote the safety of its volunteers. These changes would help prevent future tragedies: (1) allow volunteers to live together (there is strength in numbers); (2) give volunteers allowances to hire watchmen (an inexpensive measure that provides local employment); (3) encourage volunteers to live with local people (as I did in Malawi); (4) place more volunteers in rural areas (urban centers have higher crime rates); (5) strictly protect volunteer confidentiality, so that whistle blowers like Kate Puzey are protected; (6) working with the State Department and host country governments, aggressively prosecute criminals who prey upon Peace Corps volunteers; and (7) provide comprehensive, long-term support to volunteers who are victimized.
Peace Corps service is a calculated risk - a relatively small one. Within the Peace Corps, changes should be made to protect volunteers; Sargent Shriver would have wanted that. I hope that these changes, not a fearful backlash against the Peace Corps, will be the legacies of Jess Smochek and Kate Puzey.
Michael Buckler, Esq.
3112 18th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20010
Author, From Microsoft to Malawi: Learning on the Front Lines as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Hamilton Books 2011)
mike_buckler@yahoo.com
Recommend Recommended by 219 Readers
6.
jpcarson
Knoxville, TN
May 11th, 2011
8:17 am
There is 32 year-long and counting "broken covenant" between the federal government and the federal civil service in that the government has failed to ensure members of the federal civil service are adequately protected from reprisal and other prohibited personnel practices as they perform their duties in a trustworthy fashion, per the merit system principles.
To make an analogy, the "immune system" of the federal civil service is broken, allowing dysfunction and corruption to take root and flourish in many federal workplaces and agencies. This situation in the Peace Corps, which has existed for many years, is a manifestation of the "broken covenant." See http://whsknox.blogs.com/covenant for eye-glazing civil service law detail.
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
7.
mary ann c.
raleigh NC
May 11th, 2011
8:17 am
Just when I thought things were improving, women face another horrific situation. Hillary, once again, we need your help! I actually thought about joining the peace corps..what a terrible thought....
Recommend Recommended by 21 Readers
8.
observer31
Stormville, NY
May 11th, 2011
8:17 am
Shame on the Peace Core for blaming the victim.
Shame on Congress for using an excuse not to establish legislation to require the Peace Core to handle rape cases appropriately.
Recommend Recommended by 105 Readers
9.
NGB
Wisconsin
May 11th, 2011
8:17 am
It is time to lift the lid on that stinking pot. Not only to reveal that these circumstances exist, but why the Peace Corp officials are so lax in dealing with the issue. Is it money or a mind set or both?
Recommend Recommended by 71 Readers
10.
Thomas Mischler
Grand Haven, MI
May 11th, 2011
8:17 am
Is this the same Republican House that recently passed HR3, a bill that forces women to prove to the IRS that the pregnancy they aborted was actually caused by forcible rape and that the woman did all she could to prevent it? But now, that same House is a force for victims' rights, and of course it has nothing to do with the fact that, well, we never really liked that Democratic Peace Corps thing anyway.
The level of cynicism and hypocrisy here is breathtaking.
Recommend Recommended by 193 Readers
11.
leftofcenter
left coast
May 11th, 2011
8:44 am
I have very mixed feelings about Peace Corps, though will disclose up front
that I have never served as a PCV. Its mission is admirable but in my experience working overseas, and meeting PCVs, it appears to bring more harm than good to its volunteers. Of course current and returned PCVs can speak more to this; what I observed is volunteers placed in isolated locations, dealing with situations and job descriptions (usually) way over their area of knowledge and ability. Volunteering is a noble and wonderful undertaking; I myself have offered my time to different causes over the years -- all of them non-governmental. My feeling is that the Peace Corps has migrated far from President Kennedy's original vision; I can't imagine that he intended to deploy volunteers into situations that are potentially life-threatening, and certainly life-altering, as in the case of these young women. Democrats must not be afraid to stand up and demand that Peace Corps take the rape of its volunteers lightly; using the fact that President Kennedy was a Democrat is a poor excuse, and ultimately holds up no better than those put forward by Republicans not wishing to criticize the programs of Republican presidents. Rape is serious and devastating on levels that nobody but a rape victim can comprehend. That Peace Corps is sanctioning its existence amongst its Volunteers is downright appalling and is forcing me to rethink my decision to become a PCV later on in my career.
Recommend Recommended by 47 Readers
12.
doktorij
Eastern Tn
May 11th, 2011
8:44 am
It is shameful that anyone would be treated this way. Unfortunately, it isn't surprising either.
A congressional hearing eh? Now aren't these the same folks who want to cut funding for the Peace Corps? I suspect there will be a lot of harrumphing and indignation on display for the press. I doubt they will provide the Peace Corps the funding and tools needed to address the problem.
The Peace Corps is a great concept, with many ideologically motivated people who volunteer to help others out. They get sent to some pretty rough sections of the world. Violence and fear often rules. One would have thought the administration of the Corps would be well prepared to deal with issues of rape, violence and murder of volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 50 Readers
13.
CJ
W.Orange, NJ
May 11th, 2011
8:44 am
My son who served Peacecorp for around 14 months quit the service after he witness his fellow female member was raped but hushed up by the higher-ups. This is about time to talk about this issue openly, and the proper measure to protect not only the female members but all Peacecorp members should be taken.
Recommend Recommended by 148 Readers
14.
Holly
Washington, DC
May 11th, 2011
8:44 am
The Peace Corps were create to help people around the world in need of care - and they can't provide the same compassionate care to their own? Makes one question whether they are still following their mission and if their priorities are in the right place. Definitely in need of investigation and reform.
Recommend Recommended by 56 Readers
15.
oldmanwithaclicker
Indiana
May 11th, 2011
8:44 am
We should all decry the treatment of this young woman, and of course the rapists should be punished--if possible. It seems a shame to bring up partisan and speculative considerations here, but I can't resist...I wonder if Rep. Poe's (R-Texas) sympathy for Ms. Smochek would have extended to having the U.S. government a) provide funds for an abortion, had it been necessary and she had desired it, and b) "rush in," presumably by way of expensive legal, police or military action. After all, Mr. Poe, this kind of thing costs money, like health care and schooling for the poor, social security, NPR....
Recommend Recommended by 65 Readers
16.
Sherry Friend
Port St. Lucie, FL
May 11th, 2011
8:45 am
As a returned Peace Corps volunteer, may I suggest that you also investigate the number of volunteers who are killed. Now there is a number that the government would prefer we all not contemplate.
Recommend Recommended by 106 Readers
17.
Eric
Virginia
May 11th, 2011
8:49 am
"We do not place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments", but there are no totally safe environments. The Peace Corps needs to be honest with volunteers about risks and challenges and support them when they are victims of crimes. It cannot guarantee safety or that places it sends people are safe. The staff are defensive and blame the victim because they have the mistaken notion that they should be able to keep volunteers safe. They can't; no one could.
They "complain that they are not advised on how to prosecute their attackers." While the Peace Corps should indeed advise victims, it also needs to be understood that prosecuting the victims will be nearly impossible in some of these countries, and that the victim themselves might be tried for making the accusation. Volunteers should be informed of these problems when they sign up.
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
18.
richard
denver
May 11th, 2011
8:59 am
# 10: Thanks so much for making the topic of females being raped in the Peace Corps to a diatribe against Republicans! Just more of the use of the NYT for campaign 2012 . Nothing like saving those advertising dollars by getting these freebies!
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
19.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
mellowd22
Bay City MI
May 11th, 2011
9:00 am
I feel so fortunate to have been in the Peace Corps in what became a very dangerous part of the world-the two years just prior and partially during the Biafran war in Eastern Nigeria. While serving I received countless proposals of marriage (I felt as if I had VISA printed on my forehead), but never even so much as sexual harassment. I'm wondering what percentage of women in the Peace Corps have suffered sexual injury and how that compares to the percentage of women in the American population, also a shocking and under-reported percentage.
I approached my Peace Corps experience as an adventure and personal education, accepting that with adventure comes risk. To me, the extraordinary fact here is not what can happen to women in the Peace Corps but how it is treated by the very country they are serving. I am truly shocked at the callousness of our government response and am so glad that it is being brought to light. On the other hand, I am hoping that women are not discouraged from serving in the Peace Corps, two years which for many of us RPCVs was a highlight of our lives.
Recommend Recommended by 98 Readers
20.
krescera
Hyderabad,India
May 11th, 2011
9:00 am
Countries like Bangladesh seem to following the playbook of the American universities.Blame it on globalization.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
21.
Shel Stein
S. Florida
May 11th, 2011
9:00 am
It's time for an online Peace Corps utilizing educational multimedia. It's easier to develop content that can be used across national boundaries, than expose our youth to mistreatment and abuse. There is no reason this abuse should be swept under a rug, or shut in a closet. Perhaps a new breed of volunteers could develop online content.
Another form of rape is to our planet and environment. Do we wake up early on, or do we find ourselves one morning deep in the thick of things?
Every child in our world should have the opportunity to be literate, have a full education, a meaningful productive livelihood, and contribute to their society and mankind. Technologically we have little excuse.
Cooperation and development of content is the challenge to be overcome.
Here's to a post 2012 more civilized world ....
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
22.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
S.W.Peters
Kansas City
May 11th, 2011
9:01 am
I was a volunteer in Poland from 1990-92 and a staff member in Armenia for 4 months in 1993. During that time, I was aware of several "incidents" (verbal harassment, primarily) in both countries. We women volunteers developed a few rules of thumb--don't make eye contact, frown, walk confidently, try to have a male volunteer walk you home at night, etc. This may have helped a bit.
The combination of young (under-30) female volunteers sent into male-dominated cultures; the Peace Corps training about cultural sensitivity, i.e. not antagonizing the locals; and the fact that in many less-developed countries, volunteerism is an odd foreign idea not really understood--all this contributes to the problem. Michael Buckler's suggestions would do much to reduce the number of ugly incidents experienced by Peace Corps volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 90 Readers
23.
deb f
Boulder, CO
May 11th, 2011
9:01 am
Whenever there is a hierarchy of men indecision making and a "legacy' to be protected, the rights and basic protection of women seem to always take a back seat to everything else. Why is the wheel continually re-invented? Whether it is suffrage, protection initially under SPCA guidelines, US laws and treatment of rape, now internationally. Only when there is national exposure - and the men are caught AGAIN with their pants down about these type of issues is anything ever done and even now ever so slowly.
Recommend Recommended by 56 Readers
24.
Rich
Kingsville, TX
May 11th, 2011
9:02 am
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer back in the late 70's. Even back then there was a culture of blame, though apparently that seems to have been institutionalized at the highest level.
I am glad this issue is getting front page news. Violence has always been one of the drawbacks of a Peace Corps service, with some countries having more than others. Our group was well informed about this before going in but most of us were completely unaware of the problems before signing on. Since you are only allowed to apply for one country at a time, advance notice of the probabilities would help everyone (including men) make the safest choice. I was robbed three times in country, once at gunpoint, twice with a knife at my throat. I only told my friends after the first time since everyone, including the administration questioned me as to why I was out where I was, though that was part of my job. The format and direction of these questions weren't part of theirs, I didn't think at the time. Now, I see they probably were.
Recommend Recommended by 68 Readers
25.
Art
Aruba
May 11th, 2011
9:09 am
The world in a dangerous place, especially for those who view it through rose colored glasses. Like any city in the US, there are neighborhoods you do not go into if you are not from there. Throughout the world it is no different. You are an outsider, easy pickings, and the local authorities really do not care about the individual Peace Corp worker.
And no, there is no righteousness about putting young inexperienced people in harm's way - that smacks of a self-righteous attitude that tends to get people hurt even worse.
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers
26.
Bill Banks
NY
May 11th, 2011
9:09 am
Indifference to suffering is entirely personal. Individuals in the Peace Corps -- easily identifiable -- seem to have behaved callously to these victims. Those managers should be dismissed: no severance, no retirement benefits, good-bye.
Without women the Peace Corps., is doomed. If the managerial culture has unofficially -- but clearly -- made it known that rape victims are not important, women would be nuts to sign up, bone-crazy, which is entirely different from a healthy desire to help others.
If those in charge of the Peace Corps., want it to succeed -- something we can not assume -- there must be immediate management change. Managers not on record actively opposing the top echelon's callousness must go. Again, that assumes it's not just another neocon wrecking crew assigned to scuttle another potentially decent federal program. Stand up for your employees or get out. It really is that simple.
Recommend Recommended by 29 Readers
27.
mm
or
May 11th, 2011
9:52 am
American women should not be placed in the way of such harm. There are areas of the world, where men simply aren't as civilized and the dangers are apparent and obvious in those places
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
28.
Robert
Albany, NY
May 11th, 2011
9:54 am
When historians look at the peace corp, this article may very well mark the beginning of the end. Lets face facts, the Peace Corp is essentially about idealism. Looking back at my time in the Peace Corp and the next 10 years I spent as a professional contractor for USAID missions in 5 countries, I realize this change already was visible a decade ago.
We no longer live in a world where the peace corp founding myth resonates. In the 1960s-70s the myth came first. We wanted to believe in the beautiful idea that our youth and the few retired volunteers were out there rolling up their sleeves working side-by-side with hungry but enthusiastic locals needing only to learn to fish to lift themselves up on their own. The problems were always present. The locals were rarely grateful, the volunteers were people looking for adventure but were increasingly not those who could take care of themselves nevermind teach locals in community's where they actually could catch their own dinner, sew their own clothes, and had lived content for a millenium or more. I know the Peace Corp in much of the world has sought to avoid this dilemma by concentrating volunteers into teaching English where native speakers are rare or developing women self-sufficiency markets where none existed before, but in many ways these changes have only increased the major clash between American cultural and legal views and those in the host country. The volunteers are increasingly working with youth only a few years younger then they in schools that dramatically raises the liklihood of romantic intent misunderstandings while volunteers organizing women in misogynist cultures found themselves in the middle of often violent reaction from the male-dominated local society.
I am personally a liberal democrat (though a much more practical thinker with age) so I find it ironic that its another liberal agenda that is likely the dagger that will mark the end of the peace corp. In the US we have a concept called date rape. This strikes a personal note with me as I remember discussing this with my students at length in my peace corp assignment and now in the US where I teach at the university-level. Americans younger than 40 probably do not undertsand that there simply is no such legal or conversational topic in most of the world (those older than 40 understand that this was true in the whole world not too long ago). As a father of a young daughter, I certainly am emotionally attached to this American legal concept. Nevertheless, as someone who lived half his life abroad, I also understand that when a young girl (and boys as well as I know one specific case in my time abroad) will enter a world where regardles of the best efforts of the US Peace Corp (or the US Prosecutors or special forces for that matter), there is simply very little that american volunteer could do to avoid rape in societies where its frankly the norm. Fact is that I would not want my daughter (nor my son) volunteer for the Peace Corp as I did 20 years ago. I would love for her to work as a assistance professional abroad but sadly that entails a great deal more control over the place and security she works and lives than possible in any variant of the peace corp. Do you know we have another famous youth abroad program unknown to those not working abroad. Its called the US marine guard program. In most countries of the world there is 6-7 of these 21 to 23 year olds who serve as the inner layer of entry-security in embassies (though SOP calls for the embassy to surrender rather than putting up a violent fight) In any case, it always struck me that they always live behind 10 foot fences, cannot drive alone but have a driver and SUV to go to a club or restaurant, and have a live-in older senior officer that they report to each evening. Am I saying this is the future for our peace corp volunteers, certainly not. That is why I see the program ending. The reality of our efforts to truly suport the rights and safety of young Americans in the Peace Corp cannot coexist with the founding myth of the peace corp. We live in an age of accountability and I don't see the storied program surviving.
Recommend Recommended by 27 Readers
29.
R.
New York
May 11th, 2011
9:54 am
The world is a far more dangerous place than many Americans want to realize.
Recommend Recommended by 16 Readers
30.
RB
Boston, Mass.
May 11th, 2011
9:54 am
What a horrible state of affairs. I've always wondered how women fared in these Peace Corps placements. I am sick and tired of women being used by men -- anywhere in the world -- as fodder for their brutality. Rape has got to end, in the Peace Corps, and everywhere.
Recommend Recommended by 31 Readers
31.
Sage Thrasher
USA
May 11th, 2011
9:55 am
Assaults on Peace Corps volunteers are routinely covered up by Peace Corps management--it doesn't fit with their world view. This includes regular beatings and routine burglary, as well as sexual assault. In some parts of the world, local officials target our volunteers for gang rape as a way of expressing displeasure with U.S. policy (I saw this first hand in Uzbekistan, where a volunteer was gang raped once, then a second time in the local police station where she went to report it.) It's a scandal how little protection this organization gives to the young people in its care; even more of a scandal how the real risks of serving have been covered up for decades by the conspiracy of silence. IMHO the best thing Congress could do is close this archaic group down--most of the world has outgrown the need for untrained idealists coming over for a two-year adventure anyway.
Recommend Recommended by 30 Readers
32.
takiba
CT
May 11th, 2011
9:55 am
Why is this so baffling to people, even people who have served.
One type of Western Liberalism refuses to hold other people and other cultures to the same standards since finding them wanting would evoke shameful feelings of superiority.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers
33.
kate
bronx, ny
May 11th, 2011
9:56 am
Regardless of the outcome of the congressional hearing the central issue will remain - that it just isn't possible to be entirely safe in this world. For all the Peace Corps can do to train the incoming volunteers to prevent rape and sexual assault and to train staff (of which there is frequent turnover due to the limitations on how long American direct hires can stay in their positions) to react both effectively and sympathetically once an assault has happened, there will always be a certain level of danger to work like this. Maybe in our increasingly risk-aversive culture there is no place for this kind of volunteer work anymore.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
34.
PJ
Harrisburg, PA
May 11th, 2011
9:56 am
I think all young women and men should be learning basic self-defense starting in middle school as part of their physical education requirements. It would benefit everyone and certainly give some type of proactive reaction to an ongoing problem. Women are subject to rape in all parts of the world and, here in the U.S., it's not any more likely to be treated fairly in the justice system than anywhere else in the world. What women need to do is try to prevent the rape from happening in the first place, and they should be educated on how to attempt to do that as part of their training before going out into the world.
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers
35.
Mary
NY, NY
May 11th, 2011
9:56 am
It is sad that the Peace Corps executive staff would take such a defensive stance upon hearing the testimonies from these women in an attempt to salvage the Peace Corps' seemingly upstanding reputation.
In a story posted on Jezebel blog, the deputy director of the Peace Corps claimed she has never heard such stories of sexual abuse and assault. Whether this is true or not, the organization should be offering extensive counseling and their sincerest condolences to these men and women who have volunteered to make the world a better place.
Instead of taking responsibility and making serious steps to ensure this will not happen to future volunteers, it seems the Peace Corps' approach to these unfortunate events is to hide behind a shoddy public relations strategy and deny these traumatic situations even happen.
I respect these brave women who stepped into the limelight to expose a very serious problem at this seemingly reputable organization. I hope new laws will be passed to ensure the safety of all volunteers abroad and that these women find the closure and peace they seek.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
36.
Robert
New Mexico
May 11th, 2011
9:57 am
Speaking as a veteran, I firmly believe that anyone serving in the Peace Corps who is assaulted, injured, or killed deserves the same support and honor as a wounded or killed veteran. At least we had weapons with which to defend ourselves. These volunteers go out armed only with their idealism and a belief in our shared essential humanity.
In rereading this I am also struck by the grim fact that "the same support and honor as a wounded or killed veteran" doesn't necessarily mean they will get good care. I won't even touch the travesty of our care for veterans other than to note that across our nation those who serve - in whatever manner - are mostly ignored or carelessly tossed aside. I am shamed by our people's response to those who do serve.
Recommend Recommended by 57 Readers
37.
Dandy
Maine
May 11th, 2011
9:57 am
In many countries, especially those developing ones, women are secondary in the culture, may be property, are powerless. Even in the United States it has taken many years for political and personal equality to evolve. This is a matter of changing cultures and no one who has power wants to give it up; witness the current War On Women now ensuing here re abortion rights. What is the answer? It can start with education,but real change will take years, unfortunately.
Recommend Recommended by 18 Readers
38.
barb
washington
May 11th, 2011
9:57 am
sending young women out alone into dangerous parts of the world is insane. the peace corps should know better. stop doing this, their presence is resenting most of the time.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers
39.
Robert
Albany, NY
May 11th, 2011
9:58 am
I did have one quick concern over this article. The tone is one where we are led to understand that the Peace Corps were cold and indifferent to rape victims among its volunteers. The problem is that we do not get any specific details on what this entailed. I know several people that work at the Peace Corps and without stereotyping would have to categorize them as extremely well-intentioned and feminists in their outlook on life. If the largely female management of the Peace Corps is to be labeled as draconian and heartless, I would need at least some evidence. Most rape victims rightly feel alone and misunderstood in the best of circumstances and may not be the ideal judge and jury on an organization. I read these comments calling for the stipping of retirement benefits and firing all the Peace Corps officials and think this really is the end for the Peace Corps. They cannot live in a world where individual rights supercede any and all causes.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
40.
newthroughChrist
I can't
May 11th, 2011
9:59 am
I cannot help to feel responsibility when I read an article such as this. I am thankful to Christ Jesus for healing me of my own wounds, but know there are many servicewomen assaulted regularly. I spent 4 years in the U.S.M.C. and was sexually assaulted more than once. The treatment my assualter and myself received after the first time has caused me silence since. I was not able to even speak to my husband about it until recent years and will remain a hidden coward from everyone else. If only someone would investigate, if only chaplains were there to assist, if only someone for the women that need someone to stand up and yell for them among the wolves now. I am sorry for them. I am thankful for everyone that chooses to serve our country but it is not a place for young innocent women. Not when young men, for the sake of others are taught to think like animals and outnumber the female almost 100 to 1 in many M.O.S. I hope someone will pursue this; thank you.
Recommend Recommended by 24 Readers
41.
Chris
Houston, TX
May 11th, 2011
10:00 am
Yes I think that the Peace Corps needs to do a better job of tending to their volunteers who are the victims of crimes while serving… but the scary part is that the volunteers are not fully appraised of the dangers, probably because they know that there would be far fewer volunteers if the truth be known. Eric (17) and Art (25), you guys are spot on!
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
42.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
LPL
Salem
May 11th, 2011
10:00 am
I'm a female RPCV who still believes the Peace Corps serves a valuable purpose, at the very least to widen the horizons and build lifelong skills for those who serve -- and ideally to make a difference in host countries while building bridges of mutual respect with people of all different cultures.
But if the Peace Corps cannot manage to get its act together with respect to how it treats volunteers who are victims of violent crime, then frankly it gets what it deserves at the hands of Congress. Placing female volunteers in precarious situations, then compounding the situation with their treatment of victims, is utterly unacceptable.
Given the choice between a diminished Peace Corps and one allowed to operate in this manner, I pick the former.
Recommend Recommended by 72 Readers
43.
Raul Rothblatt
Prospect Heights, NY
May 11th, 2011
10:00 am
I really didn't care or know about the Peace Corps for years. But in the last two years, I have worked extensively with Peace Corps alumni, and it's been an eye-opener. I have never met such a dedicated, community-oriented, smart, nice, and overall wonderful group of people. I don't want to excuse any problems with the program, but it's such a shame that only scandals get news coverage, not the decades of hard, productive work. I remain a HUGE fan of the Peace Corps.
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
44.
Coker
SW Colorado
May 11th, 2011
10:00 am
221 women reported being raped in one small government agency over a decade; that is lot. How can they characterize Peace Corps service as safe for women?
Blaming a woman for her rape is reprehensible. Some people should lose their jobs.
Recommend Recommended by 43 Readers
45.
luzmejor
Roswell, NM
May 11th, 2011
10:01 am
Maybe it is time to send volunteers in groups, instead of launching a young volunteer into chaos alone. Rapes happen to people everywhere, and most particularly in societies with only male leadership. Even here in America there is a great tendency to blame women and even children for their assault at the hands of adults.
We should root out this foolish and self-serving tendency of governments to do nothing about serious problems and to hope indivduals can protect themselves.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers
46.
Kate
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
10:01 am
This is horrifying. The fact that the Peace Corps tried to hush this whole thing is absolutely despicable.
Recommend Recommended by 19 Readers
47.
dlglobal
N.J.
May 11th, 2011
10:01 am
I feel for these women. However, I can only pity their naivete at the do-good attitude in these obvious backwards/dangerous places where the indigenous females more likely than not suffer the same fate.
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
48.
JenofNJ
NJ
May 11th, 2011
11:06 am
I salute these brave women who have been willing to come forward and put a name and a face on these crimes. Their treatment by the Peace Corps is shocking. I suspect the higher-ups are more concerned with the "image" of the Peace Corps than they are with its realities. Let's work to make significant change in attitudes and policies, starting now.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
49.
CK
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
11:06 am
And that is why, as a 24 year old woman with unusual and necessary language skills, I will never apply for the Peace Corps.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
50.
tanya
vallejo california
May 11th, 2011
11:06 am
According to the 20/20 story, the young woman who was murdered in Benin made a report to her Peace Corps supervisor, a woman, that should have been kept confidential. It was not, and the brother of the man she fingered cut her throat. I want that supervisor fired and put on trial. It was entirely her reckless disregard that resulted in the murder.
Recommend Recommended by 28 Readers
51.
MO
Washington DC
May 11th, 2011
11:06 am
I served as a PCV in Bangladesh during this same time frame. I had a wonderful experience, and I sincerely hope that this hearing does not result in PC losing funding and resources. Jessica had a horrible thing happen to her. I cannot speak to her treatment at HQ, but her case was bungled at every possible turn by an incapable, unqualified country director who should have never been hired by PC. If anything good can result of this, it would be reconsidering the political appointment process of upper PC administration and the hiring of country directors - the vast majority of whom are highly intellegent, kind, caring, trustworthy individuals who care deeply about PC and are very concerned with PCV safety and security.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
52.
karen f.
pittsford, ny
May 11th, 2011
11:06 am
it is not credible for the peace corps to claim they do not send volunteers to unsafe places and it is appalling that the peace corps has treated their own people so badly when they become victims. it is also appalling that presently the peace corps seems to be placing politics over proper treatment of the volunteers who are attacked.
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
53.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Jessie
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
11:07 am
I am an RPCV and find it utterly shameful that these survivors of sexual assault experienced the victim-blaming, coldness and lack of responsiveness. Changes need to be made to prevent such outcomes. That being said, I felt that medical care and safety management in the Peace Corps was very decentralized. It depends, country-office by country-office how such situations are handled. I felt the PC staff in Turkmenistan were very responsive and took preventive actions against sexual harassment and assault. We should be asking why some countries exhibit best practices while others are falling so far short.
Recommend Recommended by 44 Readers
54.
Greg
Portland, Oregon
May 11th, 2011
11:07 am
Even though my own work and career is quite different from the Peace Corps, I recognize the hesitancy to criticize a beloved institution. This hesitancy to criticize results in the unintended consequences we are now learning of, and the burden placed on the women (and men?) who have been traumatized.
I hope the Peace Corps management realizes that dispensing with the reason or capability to listen to and recognize criticism from it's volunteers and the needs of it's volunteers, they have been weakening their wonderful institution, not strengthening it. Accountability can also be a wonderful tool to share with the world, don't you think? My heart goes out to these courageous young women.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
55.
Greg
Brooklyn
May 11th, 2011
11:07 am
Williams states "We do not place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments."
Given the fact that hundreds of women have been raped or assaulted in the last ten years alone, obviously this isn't true.
Recommend Recommended by 18 Readers
56.
A woman in Brooklyn
Brooklyn, NY
May 11th, 2011
11:08 am
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa. I worked as a high school teacher in a remote area and I had a wonderful experience. It was one of the most memorable times of my life and I have no regrets about my decision to go. I was aware that I was being sent to a country with vastly different perceptions of women and I was aware of the risks to my health. I was also a victim of sexual assault (which I reported to Peace Corps) and rape (which I did not report). I was sexually assaulted by my direct supervisor at my school. A couple of years later, when I needed a recommendation from my Peace Corps service, I was informed by a prospective employer that the Peace Corps employee (my reference) to whom I'd reported the assault was blaming me for the "poor relationship" I had with my supervisor and that I should have "tried harder." There was no mention of the fact that I had been assaulted. The assault had occurred in the first month of my Peace Corps service. Yet it was my fault I didn't have a "good relationship" with this man, who was also a raging alcoholic and who continued to abuse his power fondling female students publicly, over the next two years? My personal experience confirms that Peace Corps does have a "blame the victim" mentality.
The risks are real. Brushing them under the table helps no one. I do want to say that despite these experiences I would still become a Peace Corps Volunteer again. The good outweighed the bad. But it's important to go into the experience fully aware of the risks so that one can make a decision about whether the experience is worth the risk.
Recommend Recommended by 30 Readers
57.
TQ White II
Minneapolis
May 11th, 2011
11:08 am
Treat them as they would be treated here!!!!
You mean we should complain that their dresses were too short? That they had been drinking too much? That they were behaving badly in some way that inflamed those pitiful, weak male minds? Perhaps you mean subject them to hours of humiliation, demeaning questions and investigations into their backgrounds.
How about we do something unusual and treat them well instead.
Recommend Recommended by 25 Readers
58.
Kim
Arkansas
May 11th, 2011
11:09 am
Violence against women remains one of the most important tools of oppression of minority groups and repression of political dissent in the developing world. In places where rapes of Peace Corps workers are carried out by the establishment, the United States government has a substantial role to play. The US could, in many of these cases, have demanded justice. By sweeping these assaults under the rug, the Peace Corps and the US has lost an opportunity to change the world.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
59.
Edmund Dantes
Stratford, CT
May 11th, 2011
11:09 am
An honest cost/benefit analysis of the Peace Corps suggests that it is not worth the money in these times of trillion dollar deficits. I advocate we declare "mission accomplished" and close up the Peace Corps shop. The long-term savings in dollars will be enormous.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
60.
A2er
Ann Arbor, MI
May 11th, 2011
11:09 am
As a former Peace Corps volunteer (hint to some commenters: it's not Peace Core or Peacecorp - just shows you don't know much about the agency) I find it interesting it's a group of Republicans bringing this up just before a funding discussion. How about a discussion about rape in our tax payer funded military contractors? Oh, I forgot - you Republicans didn't want to talk about that.
This is a subject that needs investigation and remediation and we're not about to get that from these Republicans. They'll quickly bury this whole issue once it's served its PR purpose.
Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers
61.
Kai
Chicago
May 11th, 2011
11:09 am
About half of the previous commenters seem to think rape doesn't happen in the US, and when it does, the victim is treated with the utmost respect and compassion. The Peace Corps should have a compassionate, effective system in place to deal with sexual assault, of course. But to imply that it was only in the Peace Corps that these women could be raped and hushed afterward is, unfortunately, foolish.
Women are victims of sexual assault, murder, domestic violence, harassment and other crimes right here at home. Often, they receive compassionate care and often they don't. Are women more at risk of violence in the Peace Corps than in their regular lives here in the States? Regardless, the Corps should have a compassionate system in place to prevent sexual violence and to react to it appropriately when it happens.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
62.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Liz
Albany NY
May 11th, 2011
11:11 am
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras in the late 1980s. A woman who lived in the village next to mine was raped right before I moved in. In her case, her boyfriend went out to buy her some juice and stopped to talk with friends, and a guy slipped into her house and raped her in the half hour he was gone. I don't remember hearing that she was treated callously but she was whisked out of the country right away and no attempt was made to prosecute the perpetrator, even though the village knew who it was. I didn't know much more than that about the situation.
But now I am sure that when this woman dealt with the Washington office she was treated callously. In fact, my own experiences with the medical office of Peace Corps Washington was terrible. They lost my paperwork and almost destroyed my opportunity to volunteer, in addition to being completely incompetent and generally callous when I tried to get reimbursed for treatment for a service-related condition after I returned. I would say, thinking about this more, that the entire medical office needs to be retrained, and many shown the door. Congress should subpoena its records on rape and audit its record keeping on volunteer health in general.
A few things need to change about the Peace Corps culture in general though. When I was a volunteer, the institutional culture had an underlying macho tone that was inescapable. This was especially promoted by my trainer and first manager, and the absurdity of their attitude was only apparent to me after I came home.
"Macho"? Yes, it was about proving that you were tough enough to make it. Being "tough" has no relationship whatsoever to being effective in your job. Want the Peace Corps to provide tampons in a country where there are few? You're not macho enough to be a good volunteer. Want to be placed in a village that's not isolated? You're not tough enough. Want to live with a fellow volunteer. You're not tough enough, and will never learn the language. And it went on. This then leads to callousness toward rape victims. Raped? You weren't tough enough. In this case tough enough to either resist, avoid, or, from what I now read, tough enough to notice somebody was slipping a mickey into your soda. In all of these cases, it's about blaming the victim and being callous towards volunteers in general.
The Peace Corps also needs to take the ramifications sending volunteers into highly male-dominated cultures much much more seriously. Currently, it just goes along with the normalization of sexual harassment that women and women Peace Corps Volunteers experience in these countries. Female volunteers are sent to work in the public sphere, which is traditionally occupied by men (women traditionally occupy the private sphere). When women venture into the public sphere alone in many countries men will often respond by harassing them; after all, only a "loose" woman would go out in public alone. This is what I experienced in the mountain towns and cities in Honduras. It was extremely annoying at best, and threatening at worst. By the end of my service, I was glad to get away from that.
What did I learn about this in my training? Oh, it was normal so try to think of it as a compliment! Nothing about how draining it is being harassed on the streets constantly, or what the logical extension of that behavior can be in some instances. None of that was discussed.
Peace Corps needs to becoming a victim advocate organization, yes, Peace Corps, you have to advocate for your volunteers and not see rapes as a threat to the institution. Your callousness threatens the institution, not the volunteers.
I would like to know how the organization determined that sending people out alone will cause them to be more effective than sending them out in pairs or teams. How did the organization get to the point where you have to prove you're tough enough to make it alone(I know not all local PCV offices are like this, but too many are) instead of smart enough to make a difference? All that attitude did in Honduras was give permission to people to travel around to their friends' houses for half of their service instead of working, as long as they were "tough" enough not to complain about anything, like the lack of tampons, and could show some kind of project was going on.
That being said, and having been involved in field operations for other governmental organizations, I also want to give the Peace Corps kudos for its training overall and its post-service debriefing. That debriefing was invaluable to my readjustment to the U.S. and it is not done as often or as effectively in other governmental organizations with field staff. I really appreciated that. And, there were also amazing local office staff whom everyone really loved. Each country's local Peace Corps office has its own culture, which can compensate for problems in the larger organizational culture, which is really in dire need of change.
Recommend Recommended by 84 Readers
63.
Carol K.
Missouri
May 11th, 2011
11:12 am
The way the Peace Corps treats victims of sexual assault and rape is the same way the United States as a whole treats them. Like many other countries, we seem to specialize in blaming victims and in finding ways to make the legal process almost as invasive as the assault/rape was in the first place. One of the worst things to do after a traumatic experience is to recount it in minute detail again and again and again, reliving it each time. It's a good way to develop PTSD, especially when the cops and lawyers are insinuating that if you just hadn't made the mistake of existing, you wouldn't have been assaulted.
So if we're going to be scandalized by the Peace Corps doing this, could we PLEASE pay attention to how our culture as a whole treats victims of sexual assault?
Recommend Recommended by 21 Readers
64.
Alan
Fairport
May 11th, 2011
11:12 am
Duh! What about preventing attacks in the field? What kind of precautions are taken by peace corpswomen in countries where womens' are treated like possessions? Just watched a movie about Benazir Bhutto. Was she just brave or perhaps too influenced by being educated in the U.S. in the 60's? I believe her return to Pakistan showed reckless judgement and an unrealistic assessment of her country's large anti-gender equality religious elements. Peace corps leaders need to insist on reasonable precautions and protections for women volunteers in the field, considering they might take risks in other countries that would not be risky in the U.S.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
65.
Darlene
Boston
May 11th, 2011
11:13 am
How do the families of these young women allow them to go to such uncivilized parts of the world. Reality is not a Disney movie. I feel so bad for these women who were hurt
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
66.
Bianca
Massachusetts
May 11th, 2011
11:13 am
This is truly lamentable and utterly ironic. The goal of the Peace Corps is to use humanitarian aid as a way of aiding others and bettering the world, yet the women who do so receive no 'humanitarian' relief after suffering sexual assault. And as many have said already, it's a testament to the rape culture that pervades this nation--that of the woman being guilty. These women (and male volunteers who are victims of crime) deserve support, reassurance, and legal recourse when possible.
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
67.
TheStar
AZ
May 11th, 2011
11:13 am
I see this is being taken as another chance to slap out at Republicans. How about sticking to the subject--institutionalized indifference or impotence?
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
68.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
L
Seattle
May 11th, 2011
11:14 am
I served as volunteer in Madagascar, 2005-2007. Though I fulfilled my two years of service, most of the time I was very much an outsider because I felt deeply ashamed to be associated with Peace Corps as an organization. Many members of my education group, (not all but a very close majority) were young and directly out of college--hardly the group of like-minded, committed, serious professionals with whom I thought I'd be living and working side by side. Much of the time, I felt like these "kids" wanted nothing more than to continue their college experiences by sleeping around (vacillating between volunteers and prostitutes), drinking, partying, and generally acting like fraternity animals, doing everything they possibly could to avoid any real work (most of whom weren't qualified enough to do the work, anyway!)I've met all kinds of people in my time spent overseas and Americans are, without a doubt, the loudest, most boisterous and obnoxious of them all. What's worse, is that the citizens of the host countries KNOW this about Americans in particular--they've almost come to expect it. I had one Malagasy teacher tell me that volunteers come here just to go on a permanent vacation--and how close to the truth was that.
I was fortunate enough to never have encountered sexual harassment (with the exception of "hissing", marriage proposals, a couple of gropings--minor compared to these women's stories)but I know plenty of volunteers who did. And it while I do not condone rape or harassment of any kind and would never in a million years place blame on the victim, a good number of those volunteers who were sexually assaulted hadn't used the best judgement in that particular situation. As a female volunteer, living and working abroad in, you are a target, even simply walking to market or work; you can't prevent assaults, even with the soundest of judgment. But I do believe something in Peace Corps' recruitment efforts or requirements has got to change. Young, inexperienced recent college graduates have radically changed since Kennedy's time; and I don't think they are the best and brightest of what America can offer.
Recommend Recommended by 72 Readers
69.
Mary
DC
May 11th, 2011
11:14 am
Find one country in the world where men respect women. Until 51% of the population can live in basic safety where they live and work, all we have in each continent, nation, region, state, city, town is various stages of dressed up savagery.
Recommend Recommended by 20 Readers
70.
TJ
Colorado
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
A few years ago when congressional hearings were held about violence against women at the US Air Force Academy, many were shocked. However, no one called for closing down the Academy. Instead, the culture of the academy, both the administration as well as the cadets, were forced to change. While we cannot exist in a risk free world, not living here in the US or abroad, we can attempt to lower these risks - for instance by not stationing volunteers in urban areas in the developing world. Most importantly to victims is to change the response by the administration - a basic change that has been made at the Air Force Academy in response to those hearings.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
71.
Linda Gray
Calais, Vermont
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
I know of incidents where female Peace Corps volunteers were denied proper medical care for conditions relating to women's health. The Peace Corps hierarchy, as it perceives and administers its promise to the health of volunteers, needs to look at many of these medical claims, not only the awful cases of rape and murder, but more everyday medical needs of women volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 14 Readers
72.
aim
brooklyn,ny
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
it's unfortunate young women today being idealist and joining the Peace Corp to help people in 3rd world countries and realizing they are in an extremely none idealistic situation. why even bother doing this good well when global rapes reported daily just read them online_it's not NEW news. i tell my idealistic daughters there's plenty needy people here to be help.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
73.
TC
DC
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
I would prefer my daughter and son to join the U.S. military. At least they can protect themselves.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
74.
jackvjava
blue ridge mountains
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
What a surprise! All of those "noble savages" in the liberal ethos just turn out to be savages and only noble in the minds of the utopian dreamers divorced from reality.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
75.
Will
Chicago, USA
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
Like any large organizations, the people running it is more interested in protecting their jobs and organization than it's people.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers
76.
Cameron. B.
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
11:15 am
Somewhere I heard that there are more rapes and domestic violence in the United States than in most other non-warring nations.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
77.
J.S.
massachusetts
May 11th, 2011
11:16 am
I get the icky feeling that this is all a cover-up of the first magnitude. There is more under the surface here. What else could happen by sending our most innocent children to God forsaken parts of the world where violence and degradation prevail. What, they are immune because the are Americans?
Let's have our young volunteers send can-goods and band-aids over sees from say, California and Boston. And they should have security in these places there as well.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
78.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
LM
NC
May 11th, 2011
1:06 pm
As a current PCV, I can say that the interests of the site, the host-country nationals and the local government often trump the personal concerns/issues of the PCV. When it comes to site issues, I rarely have confidence that PC will back me up; for me, this has led to safety issues. For many countries (including the one I serve in), PC is unwilling to alienate the host country for the sake of improving one volunteer's service. After all, volunteers come and go, but the relationships with host country nationals dictate the status, and ultimately the feasibility of the program. Thus, PC, in my experience, is unwilling to address minor (or major) volunteer issues if it risks undermining the relationship with the host country.
Recommend Recommended by 44 Readers
79.
jdthompsonassociates
Sacramento
May 11th, 2011
1:08 pm
As the mother of a female Peace Corps volunteer who will serve in South America beginning in September, these stories create great concern to me and my husband. Yes, we know there are risks involved, but we expect this agency to stand by its volunteers in all situations and to do everything possible to keep them safe and secure.
Like Mr. Buckler, I believe that there is an opportunity to bring about much needed change to the Peace Corps in order to ensure the safety and security of all volunteers. I would like to challenge Maria Shriver, the daughter of Sargent Shriver, to step in and contribute in a meaningful way to improve the Peace Corps operations and be an advocate for change. Ms. Shriver can honor her father's legacy by adding the safety and treatment of women in the Peace Corps -- and all volunteers -- to her list of causes. Ms. Shriver is passionate about change and women's issues and with her leadership skills, political savvy, and professional credibility can make a very significant contribution to the Peace Corps organization, its volunteers and the people served around the world.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
80.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Lucas
Portland, OR
May 11th, 2011
1:09 pm
I was a Peace Corp volunteer in Latin America in the early 2000s. Though I absolutely loved the country I was in and stayed for two years, I had a terrible experience w/ the Peace Corps itself and was only in service for appx. 11 months. The main reason for my leaving was because I had my life threatened by two men because of unsubstantiated rumors. These men were serious and promised me that if they saw me come through their neighborhood again, they would kill me. Since I was in a very rural part of the country that had no police or law enforcement (vigilante or frontier justice was the usual rule of thumb), I was obviously scared and concerned for my safety. Being that during training the Peace Corps touted volunteer safety as the most important thing, I thought my APCD (boss) would be concerned as well. Turns out he didn't even believe me and sluffed it off. Needless to say, I was extremely angry and disappointed in this so-called leader who completely ignored one of his volunteer's safety and well-being.
My case isn't rare, either. I knew of friends who had traumatic experiences (including sexual assault) that were buried by Peace Corps administration as well. Bosses who either didn't believe the volunteers' stories or were just too lazy to do anything about it and bring about a proper solution.
I don't want to come across as anti-Peace Corps because I'm not. I truly believe that the organization is a great program and that the majority of volunteer experiences are wonderful, positive life-changing events in a person's life. I also believe it does a great service to the countries themselves. I would never want to see the program go away. However, there does need to be some serious re-evaluation of incident response and protocol to ensure that the Peace Corps administration is doing what they need to (and said they would) do to protect its volunteers. It's a shame that a lack of response and apparent apathy by administration could turn what could be a wonderful experience into a terrible one.
Recommend Recommended by 49 Readers
81.
Jaremi
Houston
May 11th, 2011
1:09 pm
I am not buying the fact that Peace Corps does not send its people to places that are dangerous (at least somewhat dangerous). That is the whole purpose, right? As a former missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ, my companions and I at times worked in areas of high poverty in favelas outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now, you can think whatever you want about the work we missionaries do but what's the point of trying to help if you cannot also reach out to those who may live in areas of higher need with added levels of crime also being present? Perhaps the Peace Corps should have its young woman and men work in pairs (or groups) similar to the way the LDS missionary program works. Bad things can still happen but it is much more difficult to target somebody in a group than it is to target somebody who is alone. Also, having a witness present can confirm what happened if something goes down. At any rate, the Peace Corps cannot treat its precious volunteers in this manner as it is shameful.
Recommend Recommended by 7 Readers
82.
Ebola
Boston, MA
May 11th, 2011
1:10 pm
How Peace Corps is dealing with this issue is truely appalling and I hope this spotlight opens the agency up to constructive responses. That said, the issue of sexual assault and harassment is not unique to the Peace Corps, women working in international developement/public health are all potentially at risk of finding themselves in dangerous situations. While an effort to address this worldwide is necessary it is not realistic, however, I would like to see this conversation open up and responses to occur not just in the Peace Corps but also at universities and in NGOs who send their female employees/students abroad. This is much bigger than just the Peace Corps - and while it is a risk that many of us acknowledge as we go into the field - receiving training prior and knowing we will have access to resources and will be supported should something happen is the LEAST that should be done.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
83.
Ramesh G.
Calif.
May 11th, 2011
1:10 pm
The Peace Corps was ahead of its time, in 1961, and the deplorable treatment of these selfless women, in 'poor' 'needy' parts of the world suggests that it still is.
Sadly, the world confuses poverty and need with a benign culture and moral society - just as it confuses wealth and influence with necessarily corrupt and immoral.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
84.
sh
vancouver wa
May 11th, 2011
1:10 pm
The comment by the psychologist that her follow up treatment was worse than the rape was inappropriate. No one who has been raped would really think that.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
85.
tml
new york, ny
May 11th, 2011
1:11 pm
Several years ago, when I was considering joining the Peace Corps, I attended one of their informational meetings. I specifically asked the current and former volunteers there whether there were any issues being a woman, since being an experienced female traveller I had experienced difficulties, and that on top of that women volunteers would be placed in a situation where they would often have to work with men (or lead men) in cultures where females do not have a voice. I hadn't even asked about violence.
My question was basically ignored and belittled, as if I were somehow being uninformed, or paranoid, or just not assertive enough to work in the Peace Corps.
Their attitude alone made my decision not to join at the time; with this article, I am now outraged.
Recommend Recommended by 24 Readers
86.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Craig
Maui, Hawaii
May 11th, 2011
1:17 pm
I read this article with a great deal of interest. While I am not a former PCV, I have worked extensively in both the first and Third Worlds, as I agree with the commentator in #68, as my impressions of PCV has been very mixed. While some have been mature,dedicated and sincere, many have treated their Peace Corps service as an extended holiday/college, or worse, as an extended adolescence. Drug use was the norm, as it often was an excuse to party and act like the ugly American, with the most boorish behavior. The naievete of many of the volunteers, who are often young, inexperienced, products of an upper middle class backround without the street smarts necessary in many very poor places that are dangerous and isolated. We often joked that, unlike, the passe slogan of the PC, 'that this was the hardest job you will ever experience, but rather, the longest vacationyou will ever have'. Many gave up in frustration or boredom, and seemed to be perpetually stoned as marijuana and drugs were often cheap and readily available. In isolated locations, supervision was neglibible or non-existent, and volunteers ran amok, taking advantage of their prestige as Americans,rich in the eyes of any local.
What is extraordinary is the failure of this article to mention a murder of a female volunteer in Tonga, in the 70s, by, of all perpetrators, a fellow PCV who spurned his advances!. The alledged murderer, through the influence of his wealthy family in NYC, was allowed to quietly slip out of the country, on the premise that he would return to the country for a trial at a later date, which never occured. The victim, from a family of modest means, did not have the clout or financial resources to pursue the case, the parents passed away, as it quietly fell through the cracks, and was forgotton until a book was written about this incident a few years ago. The irony, is that the alledged murderer, secured a senior position in a Federal agency, and quiety retired on full pension when his identity was revealed in the book, after 25 years of service. Nothing ever happened, due to his wealthy and well connected familiies ability to whisk him out of the country, the incompetence and inexperience of the Tongan police and the preoccupation of the embassy and PC in 'protecting the image if the agency'. Sadly, this is all true, as many PCV, are more preoccupied with building a resume in preparation for their eventual return to the States.
While rape is a brutal and unacceptable crime, one needs to realize that the same intolerance exists in our own country. This is hardly the norm in many parts of the world. Rape is a normal act of intimidation and behavior by armies and militias throughout many parts of the world, especially glaring in Africa ( note Congo), where women are routinely raped and assaulted, as they have little or no redress legally, or access to medical care. People who volunteer to live in countries that are impoverished should think carefully before doing so, as this is the same attitude one takes in many situations or places in American cities.
I am sorry that these women have experienced indifference and callousness in reporting these assaults, but it also exists in all areas of American culture. I spent three years in Iraq, as the incidence of sexual assault and theft, both among the civilian and military staff existed and was carefully covered up, due to 'confidentiality' and the need to protect the image of the 'mission'. Anyone going abroad should realize that cultural norms can be very different, as Americans no longer have the prestige they once enjoyed in a world that was quite different. To those who want a good read, the experiences of veteran PCV, Moritz Thomsen, The Farm on the River Esmeraldas, about his experience over 30 years ago in Ecuador is a classic about living in the developing world. George Packer, the gifted New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize winning writer, wrote a marvelous memoir of his experiences in Africa, specifically in a remote country backwater called Togo. These former volunteers wrote of their bittersweet experiences in the Third World many years ago. PC volunteers, as has the world, have changed a great deal since then. The idea of sending young, inexperienced people with no job skills, or, often, common sense, maybe in need of being reevaluated. The Peace Corps, is a wonderful concept, but the execution of that mission is questionable.
Sadly, recent American wars and policies have squandered whatever good will we once enjoyed after 9/11 and tarnished the American image that we wish to export to the world.
Recommend Recommended by 36 Readers
87.
Constitution First
Lexington Mass
May 11th, 2011
1:18 pm
I applaud Nikki Tsangas efforts, though I must mention, this is the only thing I've heard of her doing, positive or negative, in her three years since being elected.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
88.
alterego
san francisco
May 11th, 2011
1:18 pm
I have to agree with Comment #1. I was raped at age 15 on my way home from school in a supposedly safe suburban neighborhood outside of Washington, D.C. Although I was wearing winter clothing, including pants and a hooded jacket, the police were most interested in what kind of underwear I was wearing and whether this could have "invited" the attack. Their interest in my attire was purely meant to embarrass and humiliate me. I was outraged and speechless, and decided not to prosecute because I did not have the confidence and stamina at that age to deal with the attitude that law enfdorcement had toward me. It disgusts me that this attitude still prevails at the Peace Corp.
Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers
89.
HoonieW
New Jersey
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
Peace Corps presents a video about the subject of rape to all volunteers. However, the video places blame on the victims of rape instead of on the attackers. Clearly, the subject is not approached appropriately within the organization, and due to their unaccountability, these women are left to suffer.
When joining the Peace Corps myself, I was aware of the increasing reports of rape and Peace Corps ignorance in dealing with them. But despite the statistics I was still drawn to the organization because I was told how elite and life changing it is. However, the reality of the Peace Corps today its not quite what it was when JFK proposed it in the 60s. These days the people hired to run this organization clearly have little concern for the general well being of volunteers-- I ended up terminating my service after I was told to "wait out" a severe life threatening illness alone on an isolated island. I was essentially left for dead, which is a prime example of Peace Corps obvious inability to remain accountable.
Clearly, Peace Corps needs to undergo some major reforms. They've got hordes of young people willing to dedicate 2 years of their life, but no one to oversee proper management of the organization.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
90.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
EnglishBA
Baltimore, MD
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
The Peace Corps did have a Sexual Assault Response Team model that was initiated and performed by the federal criminal investigators of the Office of Inspector General, in conjunction with the Peace Corps Medical Unit, from 2005-2008. In 2008, the then Director of Peace Corps determined that 1811 federal agents of the OIG, who were specifically trained in sexual assault and homicide investigations, should not be conducting those duties. There were successful prosecutions and convictions of both rapists and murderers of Peace Corps Volunteers during that same time period, when the federal agents working for the Peace Corps OIG coordinated the prosecution in the host country with local police and prosecutors. The OIG agents had a agreement with the FBI Laboratory at Quantico, VA for the analysis of forensic evidence, and an agreement with AFIP to conduct, assist, or observe post-mortem examinations in host countries where Volunteers had died suddenly and unexpectedly, or violently. All of these measures were eliminated by the Director of the Peace Corps in 2008, when the criminal investigators were ordered to cease and desist from responding to violent crimes against Peace Corps Volunteers, as they would instead be tracked by program analysts in the Office of Safety and Security. None of the personnel in that office were actual law enforcement, nor did they have any statutory authority to investigate criminal violations, to gather and process evidence, or to testify in court as law enforcement personnel with expertise in the area of sexual assault or homicide investigation. Peace Corps never wanted to shed light on the fact that many Volunteers become victims of crime during their service, as it hampers recruitment efforts. The OIG Office of Investigations shed light on these crimes, through their Semi-Annual Reports to Congress, where anyone can read about all the violent crimes against Peace Corps Volunteers. The OIG investigators were the only officially designated victim advocates in Peace Corps, but were shut down by Peace Corps management. If Peace Corps was serious about seeking justice and advocating for violent crime victim Volunteers, they would not have dismantled the only investigative team in the Peace Corps with the training and experience to respond to and investigate these crimes anywhere in the world. Peace Corps lost invaluable experience, training, and professionalism when they shut down the OIG violent crime response team.
Recommend Recommended by 38 Readers
91.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Stephanie
Vermont
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
First off, I admire the courage of these women to speak out. Rape is not easy to talk about, and our society is not very receptive to the topic that makes most people a little uncomfortable, especially if talking to a victim. I think this discussion needs to be expanded to include the state department as well, however. I was raped in an alleyway at knife point last year in Lao PDR, and the help that I received from the US embassy was superficial and disheartening. While it was not surprising that Lao officials continually questioned the credibility of my claims and put the blame on me, I was frustrated to feel like a burden on the US embassy. I felt like they much preferred that I hadn't contacted them so they would not have to deal with such an ugly situation. I had to pay for all of my medical expenses, received at the Australian embassy. Upon returning to the US, I was even more astound to find that their were programs that would pay for counseling and aftercare because the embassy never informed me about these options. Had I not done the research on my own, which was a difficult process in and of itself having to retell my story every time my call was transferred, I would have never received aftercare essential to my emotional health today. Traveling to male dominated lawless developing countries is dangerous, especially for women, but this isn't new information. Rape happens at alarming rates in the US as well. I am not sharing my story to instill fear. Quite the opposite, I want women that are victims to know that there is help available and to continue the discourse that these Peace Corp volunteers have bravely opened the door to. The care afforded by US public official to victims of sexual assault has much room for improvement as does all of US society in breaking down the barriers that sustain the topic's taboo.
Recommend Recommended by 37 Readers
92.
Jim L
NYC
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
Continuing on with Mr. Buckler's point of, "working with the State Department and host country governments, aggressively prosecute criminals who prey upon Peace Corps volunteers. "
I agree and violence against Americans abroad, must be dealt with swiftly, with the utmost political & economic pressure to allow the FBI or another law enforcement agency to jointly investigate crimes against Americans and to hand off any suspects to local law enforcement. This is mostly true when we believe the crime is not being taken seriously at the local level. It can only be taken seriously by local officials, if it is taken seriously and presented as a serious crime to those officials, by local PC directors that themselves take it seriously. How in this day and age it can be treated otherwise, is itself an act that deserves review an internal review, investigation and corrective action.
We then, with continued political & economic pressure, must be assured of a speedy trial and we must advocate for tougher sentencing requirements in those countries that refuse to dole out adequate punishment.
While all visitors to foreign country should be respectful of local customs, just as the visitor is subject to local law, so too must locals be held accountable to their own laws when committing crimes against Americans and other foreigners.
PCVs must not be seen as targets with minimal risk of retribution because they are foreigners and because their own government is too meek to seek justice while promoting the good the Peace Corps does.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
93.
Jay
PA
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
Not only should the legislation be passed and victims advocates be created, but we should go a step further and demand that the Peace Corp provide full assurance of safety and needed protection for all volunteers. Countries that accept Peace Corps volunteers must be held accountable for the safety of these people as well. The statement that a Democratic representative is fearful that this will undermine a former President's legacy program is unfounded and unncessary and in fact it is discrimantory and callously indifferent towards the safety our citizens. As a registered Democrat I am outraged that any representative would declare the program more important than the welfare and safety of the volunteers of the program. The director of the Peace Corps should resign as should all those whose mistreated or who failed to respond to the complaints of all the women who were assaulted. Additionally any foreign country that fails to guarantee the safety of volunteers and fails to sign an agreement guaranteeing that safety as well as prosecution of those who commit crimes against American Peace Corps volunteers should be advised that they will not receive any future volunteers and indeed, I would go a step further and elminate any American foreign aid to that country. No American assistance program, no matter how good or sucessful should allow the mistreatment or criminal assault of the volunteers or others.
There needs to be a criminal investigation and a lot of people both here and abroad need to held accountable. Those responsible for rape, assault and murder must be brought to justice. A hearing isn't enough. Prosecution must follow and so must resignations.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
94.
Robert
Albany, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:19 pm
I plan to have my class read this article in class next semester. I think it represents a classic example of how two well-intentioned, emotionally-laden wishes can completely contradict each other. Many commentators fault the peace corps for placing women volunteers in societies where rape is a norm (I worked in one for 10 years in which every women I knew said they had been raped at least once). Yet, at the same time the fundamental goal of feminist libration in America has been equal rights for all and no organization should deny positions to a volunteer based on their sex. I also will hand out two excellent summaries of the CBS reporter sexually assualted in broad daylight by the protesters in Cairo for a half an hour. I have one article where the writer argues CBS was cruel and wrong to have place a woman in the middle of that situation even with a hired British special forces officer for a bodyguard. Yet, another argued that we cannot stop putting women in harms way or it would be a defeat for womens rights. What is the right answer? This to me lies at the heard of this article's debate. I know several Peace Corps managers and they represent all that is good about America and serving on behalf of the worlds poor. Yet, they also are ardent feminists who would rather resign than allow any such thing as a male only volunteer location. What is the right answer?? Certainly the poor quality of the posts in reply to this article suggest we have few willing to realistically think this problem through. Instead, its all about throwing out the bums at the top. What would you do if you ran the peace corps.
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
95.
jen garry
Mt Pleasant
May 11th, 2011
1:20 pm
There are problems here on may fronts.
Many of these young people (volunteers), who are well intenioned, are also sadly, incredibly naive, sheltered and privaleged. They are college educated with little or no experience on their own in the world, the real and impoversihed 3rd world, especially.
The Peace Corp has the real responsibility of being brutally honest with these folks and offer some type of protection and use of concern and rationalization where they send peple who undertake this "calling".
These innocent and naive volunteers are unprepared and don't think of the real dangers that will greet them in these far flung corners of the world. These 3rd worl countries don't abide by our laws or sense of civility or decency. They abide by the law of survival and or take what you want or need philosophy. In truth they can't afford many of these civilities. This is not an excuse, but many of these volunteers don't realize its' not "Rainboows, Unicorns and Lollipops". They've seen too many UNICEF commercials and don't realize or think through the full 24 hour a day situation that you are signing on for.
Peace Corp needs to restructure itself,be fair and offer support to these volunteers. There should be more vigorous screening, and brutal honesty and even not going to certain areas that are just too risky.
Sadly, they are not in our country and the laws we live by don't apply elsewhere...
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
96.
John de Clef Pineiro
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:20 pm
"The women say Mr. Williams's efforts, while promising, are not enough. They want Congress to pass legislation requiring, among other things, that the Peace Corps develop "sexual assault response teams" to collect forensic evidence and provide emergency health care and advocacy for victims after attacks. Mr. Williams said he was open to such legislation but has not committed to supporting it."
Sounds like director Aaron Williams should start looking for another job or be reassigned by the Obama administration.
In this matter, we don't need distant, half-hearted and uncommitted bureacrats that lack the urgency to act, when immediate decisive legislative action is clearly what is called for.
What has been allowed to prevail in the Peace Corps's administration (mostly during the Bush years) is an outrage that cries out for change we can believe in. Mr. Williams is not providing that leadership.
A familiar military saying applies: "If you can't lead, get out of the way."
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
97.
Linda Gray
Calais, Vermont
May 11th, 2011
1:20 pm
How many of the rapes of women are committed by Peace Corps volunteers? This issue could raise awareness about poor treatment of rape victims in the United States as a whole.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
98.
BobK90
Burlington, NC, USA
May 11th, 2011
1:20 pm
JFK only created the Peace Corp to Satisfy Democrats, to get them to Vote YES on his Creation of the Army Special Forces and then send them to Vietnam as "Advisors" only! The Peace Corp does some great things but in the End was and is today a Farce! I met some Peace Corp people while in Honduras with 2nd Battalion, 7th SFGA and remember distinctly the guy saying that they will not learn how to grow corn to get better yields! Even after his 3 years of trying to teach them, he said they always go back to the old way of growing and not able to produce higher yields that would bring in more money and feed more people!
The Peace Corp has Goals that are Admirable but the Reality is they are an Agency that is duplicating other more effective agencies and today are simply Wasting Tax Payers Money! They should be Shut Down and Zeroed out in the Yearly Budget! That Money could goto the Victims and receive Medical Care for Connected Injuries, they also be able to get Compensation and Disability of some type, like Veterans but on a lessor scale, since they did serve the Country Honorable!
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
99.
Stephen
Delaware
May 11th, 2011
1:21 pm
Peace Corps country directors and medical officers will themselves probably be partially blamed if there is a higher than normal incidence of volunteer rape in their respective country because the Peace Corps administrators in Washington might interpret the higher incidence as a sign of poor management in the country -- poor safety and security training for new volunteers, for example, or inadequate work finding safe volunteer sites. This negative reaction they may receive from superiors when they report incidences of volunteer rape no doubt contributes to their own negative reaction to the rape victim.
For example: we know that the Peace Corps, as an organization, gets "blamed" when volunteers are killed, but where does the buck stop? If it isn't the volunteer's fault, then it must be the country director's fault, right? If it isn't the country director's fault, then it must be the fault of administrators in Washington, right? Well, maybe not -- maybe it is the fault of the murderer that killed the volunteer to begin with.
Connecting my point to the rape issue: if women volunteers are getting raped during Peace Corps service, there will be many who will find fault with the Peace Corps itself -- looking for someone to be responsible for this problem. So Washington administrators will blame country directors, and country directors will blame medical officers who are in charge of safety and security training, and the medical officers will blame the volunteers themselves. It isn't right, but everyone is looking for someone else to be responsible for the fact that a Peace Corps volunteer was raped.
If country directors and medical officers were not themselves held responsible for the rapes of volunteers in their countries, I think they would be less likely to treat rape victims in the manner suggested in the article. Is it possible that a Peace Corps volunteer gets raped and no one in the Peace Corps gets held responsible -- not the organization itself, not the country directors, not the medical officers, and especially not the victim. Perhaps only the host country rapist is to blame, and everyone else did his or her best. As long as we are looking for someone to be held responsible within the Peace Corps organization itself, that will probably unfortunately trickle down to the victim.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
100.
kay boyd
Brooklyn, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:21 pm
What? I am so upset. The Peace Corps and IVS helped so many people, in so many diverse countries. This account breaks my heart. I am so sorry. kb
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
101.
jen garry
Mt Pleasant
May 11th, 2011
1:21 pm
Although the sense of adventure is such a lure to joining the Peace Corps, the sense of real danger needs to be adressed and more imortantly acknowledged and evaluated for the risk benefit ratio.
I know it's far less glamorous, how about service here in the United States; there are plenty of needs right here at home ( our laws would protect yous as well).
Hollywood and too many made for TV shows make this glamorous with little attention to the reality of physical, emotional or mortal danger.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
102.
Millie Bea
Washington, DC
May 11th, 2011
1:21 pm
The Peace Corps as an Organization should do everything in its power to protect those who volunteer because it is first and foremost the right thing and second, because in their missions in far flug places where native women are often treated as possessions ans chattel, the way we treat our citizens- both male and female- should be a lesson to those native societies- that our women are equally important and protected as our men. This to me should have been a fundamental theme of the Corps all along.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
103.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Aaron
Cambridge, MA
May 11th, 2011
1:22 pm
I served in Peace Corps from 2002-2004. Peace Corps' safety training at the time emphasized the volunteer's personally responsibility for behaving in a way that reduces your risk of being victim of a crime. Behavior that could put you at risk included drinking, going out at night, or even dressing inappropriately. In my experience many volunteers that were victims of crime often behaved in ways that increased their exposure to safety risks (risks that are exponentially higher than what many were accustomed to back home). That said, the emphasis on personal responsibility was such that many of us felt that there was a tinge of a "blame the victim" mentality among Peace Corps administrators, so it does not entirely surprise me to hear the stories that are emerging now.
I hope that these stories, however, do not result in further steps by the Peace Corps to constrain the freedom and ability of volunteers to serve in remote and less safe areas of the world. Being a volunteer is more like being a soldier than being a foreign exchange student - most parents and some volunteers don't understand this. Peace Corps is a dangerous job undertaken by adults who should understand that there are significant risks. Most volunteers are willing to take on those risks to serve their country, their ideals, and their world.
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
104.
Cynthia
Seattle, WA
May 11th, 2011
1:23 pm
If you think that rape victims are treating appropriately here in the US, Google Texas Cheerleader to stay abreast of a current issue stemming from a rape charge. Seems as if a rape victim could not even express her right to not cheer for her attacker. Whether or not you feel the rape occurred in this instance, an assault did. The cheerleader should have been able to sit that cheer out.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
105.
genie
bklyn
May 11th, 2011
1:23 pm
decrease funding if stupidity continues, continue funding if the peace corp cleans up it's act.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
106.
Kaiser Suse
Fortress of Solitude
May 11th, 2011
1:23 pm
There are places that young women should not be sent. Let's be honest about this.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
107.
Olga
New York
May 11th, 2011
1:23 pm
I wonder what the response of the new Peace Corps advocacy team will be to volunteers who are raped by other volunteers. Within a month of being sent overseas, my friend was date raped by a fellow volunteer. When she reported the incident, she said she was subjected to a 3-hour interrogation by Peace Corps officials who tried to convince her the sex had been consensual. As far as I know, no charges were brought against the young man who raped her and he was not sanctioned in any way by the Peace Corps. Here's hoping the development of this new advocacy group means he won't be left off the hook.
Recommend Recommended by 12 Readers
108.
pgremley
Arusha Tanzania
May 11th, 2011
1:23 pm
I knew a PCV that was raped. She told me the story of the rape and how the local PC office handled the situation. I was appalled at their lack of assistance and compassion. I am very happy this is being addressed.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
109.
David
Berlin, Germany
May 11th, 2011
1:25 pm
This is a really appalling story and I applaud those women who have worked so hard to get this out into the open. What could be worse than volunteering for service in the name of your country only to have those who are supposed to advise and protect you turn their backs on you at a time of need. What does this teach young, idealistic people about their own country? To some extent, it sounds similar to the plight of many women who join the military. The situation is not acceptable in the least and must be changed now!
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
110.
E
Canada
May 11th, 2011
1:25 pm
Several of my friends were raped during my service, many more including myself were sexually assaulted, and all of us were sexually harassed on a daily basis. For the most part PC did a good job of supporting volunteers. But in the end I don't know if it was worth it. I don't mean to scare off potential future volunteers, I know my experiences are irregular (these things vary a lot post to post, year to year). But volunteers need to know the risks they face. You will feel unsafe from time to time, Peace Corp should be there to support you if you ask for it, but bad things still happen. I don't know if they will happen at a greater frequency than if you were in the States, but you will definiately feel more vulnerable. And dealing with that constant vulnerability is emotionally draining.
Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers
111.
Bill R
Madison VA
May 11th, 2011
1:26 pm
"Blame the victim" fits on a bumper sticker. Learning circumstances and events leading to an assault and rape should provide the basis for altering others of situations to avoid. Unfortunately in doing so the victim will, correctly, see what a better course of action would have been. The interviews might be instances "Learn from the victim" rather than "Blame the victim." The victim and the interviewer may well have different views on the same set of questions. The complaints needs to be looked at case by case. Peace Corps volunteers serve a short time. The aviation mantra: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all on your own." applies.
I'm glad that I'm tasked with being sympathetic and realistic at the same time with these volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
112.
Caitlynisher
Indianapolis, IN
May 11th, 2011
1:26 pm
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, I had volunteer friends who experienced awful things and then received little to no support from Peace Corps. This issue must be addressed immediately. There are big problems in the Peace Corps which are not talked about!
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
113.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
MVD
Washington, D.C.
May 11th, 2011
1:27 pm
I am really astounded that the Peace Corps is so far behind the times. It is not as tho this is a new problem. A colleague of mine in the Peace Corps in Botswana back in the early 1980s was raped by one of her students.
My own case was "only" sexual harassment, but it was by the head of the household where I was sent for my "village live-in" at the beginning of my posting in Botswana in 1980. The man was about 60 and wanted me to sleep in his bedroom. I said no, and went to the Peace Corps language instructor who was with our group in that village. She talked to the man and explained I had to have my own room, but for the rest of the two weeks, he leered at me and made sexually suggestive remarks and gestures the whole time I was there. This really ruined for me what is usually a wonderful experience for most volunteers - being part of a local family.
The rest of my time in Botswana was quite good, and I agree that this kind of sexual harassment is likely to occur anywhere in the world, including at home. But I definitely think Peace Corps should be more supportive of its volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 23 Readers
114.
Steve
California
May 11th, 2011
1:28 pm
It's about time this has come to light. I've talked to a few peace corps volunteers in my travels and it's always the same story. They're proud of what they do and they almost feel guilty for putting any blame on the organization itself. This culture of self-blame within the organization reeks of management arrogance. There were plenty of stories of female volunteers being terrified for their own safety with ZERO support from anyone in charge.
What we have here is an organization that pats itself on the back for going out to save the world by sending young idealists with little real world experience into the hornets nest. Heads should roll and they should start at the top.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
115.
Nix's mate
Boston to SD
May 11th, 2011
1:29 pm
221 rapes in 9 years averages out to 24.5555 rapes/year, NOT 22.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
116.
Orin Forde
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:29 pm
Wow. I'm reading a lot of comments from people talking about savages and barbarians. They seem to feel that American women would be safer here than joining the Peace Corps.
Are you nuts? If as one person has pointed out the rate of rape is less than 1% then more women should join the Peace Corps; they'll be safer than in the US.
The issue is not primarily the rapes, which happen with greater frequency here in the US, but with the response by the Peace Corps managers.
Recommend Recommended by 7 Readers
117.
Becca
Little Rock, AR
May 11th, 2011
1:30 pm
The staff in Peace Corps offices around the world is limited to only 3 Americans and the rest of the staff are nationals from the host country. Sadly, the stigma of rape and sexual assault and the lack of women's rights in the host country can affect the volunteers ability to seek adequate care. The main office in the US has absolutley no excuse. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I felt safe in my village but had I been a victim of assault I know it would have been more difficult in my host country to take action than it would have in the US.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
118.
AllenJ
Boston
May 11th, 2011
1:31 pm
I am very troubled to hear about such incidents. In the early 70s, I served three years in Honduras. The local men loved the American girls. They would make passes but never assaults.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
119.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
water808
Hawaii
May 11th, 2011
1:31 pm
The bottom line is the treatment and support from Peace Corps after being sexually assulted is woeful and inexcusable, and Peace Corps seems to lose sight of the personal safety of the volunteers should be the first priority. In general, Peace Corps does not do a good job in helping volunteers transition when coming back to the Unites States, and the support is ridiculously weak (no unemployment insurance for example) compared to the benefits offered to military personnel.
That said, Peace Corps is an anomaly in an amazingly risk adverse country such as the US with a bloated budget, a great program which costs only $400 million per year to the taxpayer. Rape will happen, and is an unfortunate price to pay for the great work done by Peace Corps volunteers in at times difficult situations. The balance is precarious. On one hand, Peace Corps wants to respect local cultures and ways, but on the other hand one of the goals is to educate the locals of American ways. Peace Corps doesn't allow Volunteers to drive motor vehicles because of past incidents, but this greatly hampers volunteers' effectiveness for doing volunteer work (I tried biking with survey equipment in Thailand on dirt roads as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and whomever conceives of these rules is out of their mind) and puts the volunteers in greater exposure to violence and difficult situations. The problem is that Peace Corps walks a fine line on between cultural acceptability and personal safety, programmatic viability and volunteer rights. Reaching the right balance is difficult. Peace Corps tends to have a one size fits all countries approach...the policies need to be tailored to specific countries. Also, the Peace Corps staff employees are limited in the number of years they work, and as a result some of the institutional memory might be lost and put volunteers at risk.
BTW, the incidence of rape is likely no greater than the general population in the United States, and much less than some of the horror stories from other organizations such as the military-in Oahu you see some amazingly poor behavior from Armed Services personnel for example.
The Peace Corps has an amazing impact given the meager resources at its disposal (1/1300 of the resources available to the US military). Reform is defintiely necessary. Please provide the resources to Peace Corps Volunteers that they need and deserve, they are true American heros.
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
120.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
mmt206
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
May 11th, 2011
1:32 pm
The dirty secret about PC is how poorly they deal with volunteers medical issues, whether physical or emotional. Peace Corps is the cheapest, most effective diplomatic good will that that the USG has going for it and it is sad that when problems arise, the volunteers are often left hanging, with minimal recourse or support.
I served in W Africa during the early 90's and was told at the end of my service that I was HIV positive, however when I tried to get a new test in DC from Peace Corps, I was told that it wasn't their problem and I should get tested at my home of record. I ended up going to a wonderful clinic in Adams Morgan who focus on low income immigrants and luckily the test was negative; the original result may have been due to cross reaction with the test because I had malaria during my service, but the lack of compassion or concern from the PC medical officer was frankly shocking and unnecessarily stressful.
Additionally I know that even then PC did not deal with violence towards women in a proactive or supportive way. My cousin was a volunteer in one of the first groups in Uzbekistan and she suffered numerous incidences of stoning in her daily life. Unfortunately PC told her that if she wasn't happy with her living situation, she would have to quit and be "psychovaced" to DC.
One of the factors that may contribute to the poor medical and emotional support of volunteers is that PC has a mandated high turnover of key staff- unfortunately most expatriate staff cannot serve more than 5 years with the organization so there is a lot of variability in each PC mission.
I hope that there will be a serious assessment of the treatment of PCVs medical issues in general, and that women will feel that if they report rape and other sexual assaults in particular, the weight of the US diplomatic community will be behind them. Anything less will be a shame on our country.
Recommend Recommended by 34 Readers
121.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Bonnie Lee Black
Taos, NM
May 11th, 2011
1:32 pm
In the fifty years that the Peace Corps has been in existence, roughly 200,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers. My guess is the overwhelming majority of these experiences have been positive -- both for the volunteers themselves and for the image of America in remote lands.
In my own case, I joined the Peace Corps at the age of fifty in the mid-'90s, after having lived and worked in New York City for twenty years. Age and street-smarts, perhaps, were on my side; plus, I seldom went out at night. I knew then what I still know now: Rape, tragically, can happen anywhere -- outside of a boite de nuit (nightclub) in the rainforest of Gabon, where I served; in an alleyway in Manhattan; while serving in the armed forces Iraq or Afghanistan; even in a woman's own home.
When I suffered a burn accident in my home in Gabon and needed to be exacuated to the capital for hospitalization, the Peace Corps took excellent care of me. I'm heartbroken that the PCV rape victims mentioned in this article did not receive compassionate care, and I applaud all efforts to eliminate all such horror stories in the future. But I'm also saddened to see one of the best, most peaceful, efforts of our country -- the United States Peace Corps -- maligned and undermined.
Bonnie Lee Black
Author, How to Cook a Crocodile
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
122.
MN
NYC
May 11th, 2011
1:33 pm
What a brave woman!
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
123.
sandhillgarden
Williston, FL
May 11th, 2011
1:33 pm
Most of the women who enter the Peace Corps are just out of college, have led sheltered lives in the states and have no experience with foreign cutures. They have been raised to believe that they are not responsible for their own safety because that would be "blaming the victim". On the other hand, people in the foreign country, from the perspective of their own culture, wonder why these women are not at home having babies. They often assume that because the women are not protected by the Peace Corps, and because of the womens' friendliness toward the opposite sex, that they are bait for sexual assault--an insight that many of the women, from youth and naivete, are loath to accept or guard themselves against.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
124.
D
CA
May 11th, 2011
1:33 pm
It's about time that some brave women stepped up and faced the broken bureaucracy of the Peace Corps, that faces us all once we arrive in country. Poor mismanagement reigns, with underqualified staff who usually barely take the time to even learn, speak the local language or customs. Then the real 'training' starts- we hear about murders and rapes, but yes- there is a 'lessons learned' overtone to it all, that perhaps 'it was their fault for not being careful enough'. And this joke about 'we don't place volunteers in unsafe environments'? Sure- we are adults and respect that dangers are everywhere, we're not children, we get it. But I was placed with a family who's tyrant father repeatedly beat the mother- so badly, one time he threw our couch out the window and she was carted off to the hospital. What was peace corps response when I begged to be out of this dangerous situation?- "just go into your room and lock your door, I'm sure everything will be OK". They made me stay in that house on punishment of being 'early-terminated' if I tried to arrange another living situation on my own.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
125.
Ross Heiney
San Francisco, CA
May 11th, 2011
1:34 pm
Rep. Poe's proposed legislation would do well to include and require the following:
The State Department should be required to provide rape kits to all embassies and consulates where the PC operates, and require the immediate appointment of a full-time, in-country attache to be available for direct face-to-face contact with a victim prior to overseeing and reporting the actions taken by the PC in response to a volunteer's report of a sexual assault, as well as notifying the victim of the support groups established by PC veterans and volunteers;
Prior to all volunteer enlistment, the PC should be required to disclose all dated sexual assaults reported in each host country;
The PC should be required to include in all training collateral (videos and printed materials) on the many and different ways with which sexual assault victims may anonymously and discretely contact members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to report how the PC treated, supported, and cared for the victims;
The Director of the PC should be required to notify the House Foreign Affairs Committee of all reported sexual assaults, as well as a detailed report on how the PC responded to-and the level of on-going care provided for--each victim who reports a sexual assault;
The Director of the PC should be required to notify the House Foreign Affairs Committee of any increased trends of sexual assaults reported by volunteers so as to assess the continued or modified presence of the PC in areas of increased hostilities to volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
126.
walterrhett
Charleston, SC
May 11th, 2011
1:35 pm
Democrats need to cast aside political concerns and see the rape of American women volunteering in overseas countries for what it is: an assault on the dignity of women, an inhumane viciousness that under no circumstances should be tolerated, and an attack on American values and an act of war within the context of world peace and aid to others.
To play politics doubles down on the assaults. I mentored a young woman now in Africa whose dream it was to join the Peace Corp. I expect the organization that selected her to stand behind her against every criminal violation and personal attack that she might be confronted with. She is safe; but in reality, no women are safe unless all women are. It is time for world organizations, governments, and officials to close ranks in defense of women everywhere. These acts must stop. Violence against women must be eradicated. The political and personal costs will be higher if they don't.
--Walter Rhett
twitter.com/walterrhett
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
127.
V
LA/NY
May 11th, 2011
1:35 pm
Holy moly. I am so sorry to hear about this and hope all the victims receive good counseling and healing.
I have to say that this makes me glad I was not a Peace Corps volunteer, even though I had considered it. Way to discourage young women from volunteering, Peace Corps.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
128.
Michelle
Washington DC
May 11th, 2011
1:36 pm
I was a volunteer in the 90s and also was a Peace Corps staffer in DC. What might be perceived as "blaming the victim" is the notion that Peace Corps volunteers alone have the authority and ability to minimize their personal risk by the decisions they make. A woman in my town was sexually assaulted while jogging on the outskirts of town in the mountains by herself. It wasn't her fault she was assaulted - she didn't ask for it or expect it, but she sure could have minimized her risk by jogging with a buddy. The Peace Corps works hard to empower people to make smart personal choices so they won't become victims. And yes, consuming alcohol certainly does increase a woman's risk of assault so no one can cry foul at "crass PC attitudes" when this is mentioned. Finally, no one forces any women to serve in the Peace Corps. They willingly send in the application, go through a lengthy review process, accept their assignment, walk themselves onto the plane, and decide to stay in-country. It's ALL about personal choice and smart decisions. If you are offered a country that is unsafe for women - do your research and decline the invitation. After training if you are offered a remote work site, decline and go home.
The only way future PCVs can learn from others' experiences is if we're open and honest about behaviors that increase assault risk.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
129.
cosimdm1
california
May 11th, 2011
1:36 pm
This has been going on for a long time. I did volunteer work in 1972 in Honduras, and it was common knowledge that one of the female Peace Corp volunteers had been raped in the early 1970's. The townspeople knew her name.
The town really liked the Peace Corps and were sorry that this occurred.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
130.
MC
Raleigh, NC
May 11th, 2011
1:36 pm
I did not join the peace corps because after talking with a number of volunteers it was obvious that there were few/no supports for volunteers in most areas and that fellow volunteers were vicious about individuals who left service early for any reason -- including assault (where most of the volunteers seemed to have a blame the victim ethos). A weird sort of machismo. The ones who were lucky not to have been assaulted seemed to believe that they were not assaulted because of their superior psyche or ability to project toughness. I discerned that, like in any situation, crime occurs not because the victim is tough or weak, but because the victim happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Corps apparent laxness in oversight and belief that volunteers needed to "tough it out" seemed like it would lead to an increased risk for volunteers. It is too bad. It could be a great organization with some changes. This report seems like it could lead to much good.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
131.
LH
Virginia
May 11th, 2011
1:36 pm
I was a volunteer in Botswana in the late 1980s. I did not experience any violence directed towards me. Neither was I robbed, etc. This issue needs to be dealt with by PC management but I am afraid this will be used as an excuse for the Republican neanderthals in Congress to slash or, even worse, eliminate funding for this program.
My service was life-changing in a positive way. It would be interesting to see what the real incidence of this crimes is.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
132.
Michelle
Nevada
May 11th, 2011
1:36 pm
Does anyone think rape victims in the US military receive better treatement than this? Does anyone think rape victims in our cities and towns receive better treatement than this? Yes, it's a bad situation, but unfortunately it's on a par with how rape victims are treated in the rest of our culture.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
133.
Martha
Los Angeles, CA
May 11th, 2011
1:37 pm
I am a returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I understand the difficulties that come with living in a rural area, and hear the pain that these women have experienced. There are obviously a lot of changes that need to be made in terms of creating an environment in which women feel safe to report what has happened, and are better educated about the services available to them after being victimized. However, I argue that being a victim is not a risk for Peace Corps Volunteers, it is a risk for people. If you are to look at the number of women victimized in the United States each year and how they are subsequently treated, I think you would find an even more desperate situation. I only wish that this article would look at the victimization of women in context - it is not a risk that only Peace Corps Volunteers face, but all people.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
134.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Craig
Chicago
May 11th, 2011
1:37 pm
My sister served as a PCV in Mongolia. She had to barricade herself in her apartment several times to protect herself from men literally pounding on the door wanting something more. I'm glad to hear that this issue is getting scrutiny. The irony is that my sister was raped and murdered while in graduate school in New Orleans not long after her return.
Recommend Recommended by 35 Readers
135.
MJones
San Francisco
May 11th, 2011
1:39 pm
The hope of the future of the world lies in empowering women to control their own bodies and have the right to work with full civil rights and support from law enforcement - whether in the United States or in impoverished countries like Bangladesh which the Peace Corps serves. When women have more power, they limit the number of children they have, and they spend more money on educating and providing health care for their children than men. Humanity, healthcare, and opportunities for all increase. The standard of living and life expectancy rise.
Men initially may resist giving women more power, but ultimately most realize that even they benefit from higher income, healthier and better educated offspring, and longer lives.
The best way for America to project and transfer its respect for women is by treating our women, including Peace Corps volunteers in foreign countries, as full citizens. This means that they cannot be assaulted, sexually or otherwise without humane treatment, good medical care, and bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Our women have no reason to go to countries where they can be raped without receiving health care and support from law enforcement. This leaves out some states in the US, as well as many foreign countries, I realize, but we need to get a clear message out there.
Rape is an instrument of power used by men in many situations, especially in Middle Eastern and Asian countries where women are still regarded as slaves or chattel belonging to men. The more women have equal rights, the less the men will have to gain by rape. Then it will decrease.
Women in the peace corps also need to be trained in how to deal with countries which not only permit rape, but also penalize the victim for being raped. Do not go out at night. Do not go out in crowds. Do not go out without a male escort, etc., etc. These rules should give women second thoughts about why they want to go there in the first place. Are they prepared to accept rape in order to do whatever they think they are accomplishing in the downtrodden countries? Living as the Bangladeshis live can mean this.
Women in our military are frequently raped by other military personnel, but this is not often publicized, and women hesitate to speak out for fear of subtle reprisals. I think women should receive martial arts training to resist such treatment. But it's just a fact of life in the military. At least the military has policies and rules against rape.
Rape is an endemic problem. Some countries treat victims much better than others. Some punish perpetrators more effectively than others. The Peace Corps is in a bind because the countries it most wants to help are those most likely to rape women - almost by definition. Those countries wouldn't be so backward if they didn't have such bad cultural and legal treatment of women! Duh! Maybe only couples should be sent to biological sinks like Bangladesh.
I am sorry the victim had such a terrifying and humilitating treatment in Bangladesh, and in the Peace Corps in America afterward. The Peace Corps should do a better job of teaching potential candidates what to expect in countries with a history and culture of raping upstart women. But women who want to live and work independently must be aware of the risks in advance and decide whether they want to subject themselves. And women who take the risk of volunteering in places like Bangladesh should decide how they are going to deal with rape in advance. Lara Logan is a good role model. She did not permit herself to be defined by being a rape victim. She is a superb foreign correspondent and remains so. She is the victor of the mob in Egypt.
I great admired how Lara Logan, the female foreign correspondent who was gang raped reporting on the "Revolution" in Egypt, handled her ordeal and its aftermath. She was gravely injured, saved from worse injury and even death by brave bystanders, and hustled out of the country and back to the US as quickly as possible. She took a few weeks off from work to recover, gave one interview about her experience, and said she would not discuss it further.
She was a model for all women who take such risks. If your career goals put you in harm's way, you must accept the risk and deal with it as expediently and matter of factly as possible. Lara Logan is back reporting from dangerous situations. She has likely beefed up her body guards. And she is not a victim. She is victorious.
Lara Logan is a model for all women who chose to put themselves in harm's way for their career goals.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
136.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
PhillyExPat
Bronx
May 11th, 2011
1:40 pm
I survived an attempted rape when I was in the Peace Corps in Mauritania from 1983-1985. There were two other women in my group that year, that I know of, who were raped. When I reported the attack,the Peace Corps was very responsive to my needs; they sent me back to Washington for a few weeks of crisis counseling, and they stood by me and helped pursue criminal charges against my attacker.
I have no insights beyond my own personal story, but I think what made us vulnerable was not any negligence on the part of the Peace Corps, but rather, the particular culture in which we were operating. I was living in an Islamic society where single women living independently and working in non-traditional roles were not common; I think this might have made us targets for some men. And while rape was a problem for female Peace Corps volunteers, I think it was (and is) an even greater problem for the women of Mauritania, who most certainly did not have the institutional support that I had.
Although that attack was one of the worst things that ever happened to me, I am so very proud to have been a Peace Corps volunteer and count it as one of the most positive experiences of my life. I hope my two young daughters will think about serving in the Peace Corps someday.
Recommend Recommended by 21 Readers
137.
Mik
USA
May 11th, 2011
1:40 pm
It might also be worthwhile to compare Peace Corp data and experiences with other overseas organizations like the Fulbright Program and other "corps" of young people from the U.S. going overseas. Seeing how other groups (gov or org) handle the issue could be of use.
I also wonder about individual country data. I would assume (perhaps wrongly?) that more impoverished places have higher numbers of sexual assaults? Perhaps a kind of hot spot system could be used to alert volunteers they are entering a country or location that is a sexual assault hot spot before they head off.
The only way to defend against this problem is with up to date information and planning in advance. Once an assault happens, the entire focus should be on the victim's needs and recovery. The best prevention is knowledge and planning.
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
138.
Jen
Washington state
May 11th, 2011
1:40 pm
It's important to note that the response to sexual assault and safety issues varies among Peace Corps countries. The country staff have a great deal of autonomy to deal with such issues, so the idea of a vast Peace Corps conspiracy against women is laughable. The greater problem is that in many developing countries, there are few avenues to prosecute such crimes.
When I served in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, I felt our country headquarters responded fairly and quickly to female volunteers' concerns. It's also important to note that thousands of female (and male) volunteers have served without any threat to their safety. Volunteers should know the risks of serving going in, and it is the Peace Corps' responsibility to make those statistics known.
Life is full of risks -- we can all make our own choices, based on facts, not fear-mongering, as is being done in some of the comments here.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
139.
Tom Eggebeen
Los Angeles
May 11th, 2011
1:40 pm
I hope these hearings help the PC improve it's treatment of rape victims, and equally important, to work with local law enforcement groups to apprehend and punish the perpetrators. As much as I approve of Peace Corps methods, and its respect for the prevailing culture, many of the countries in which the PC finds itself are hamstrung by vicious male predators who brutalize women and girls without prosecution. In such places, the male sexual ethic is hideously deformed, impacting the whole of that nation, adding to its miseries, preventing women from taking their rightful place and degrading the nation and its homes. I'd rather see the PC leave a nation if that nation, and its enforcement agencies, refuse to deal with this.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
140.
Louise
Vancouver, WA
May 11th, 2011
1:41 pm
The response of Peace Corps management sounds unremarkably ordinary because the "blame the victim" or "bullies rule" mentality remains a dominant feature of our culture and apparently other cultures around the world.
What can we do about this? Practically speaking I think post # 5 had some of the best suggestions.
I would suggest that all Peace Corps volunteers study a genuine martial art for 2 years, 7 days a week before they go so that they have some idea of how to anticipate and repel attacks when they occur.
In support of the Peace Corps purpose I suggest those who doubt the reason for extending unfettered care to others that they review the words; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
If all you expect and want is brutality, you are lost in a self-perpetuating nightmare. There is a way out but you don't have the guts to find it.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
141.
heath
nyc
May 11th, 2011
1:41 pm
Not only should assault victims get proper support after a crime occurs, all Corps members should also be provided with better protection up front. Besides making Corps members' life safer, better protection will offer an improved model of responsible social behavior to the rough parts of the world were these volunteers are posted. Through seeing a better model for social interaction, the lives of those being served will be further improved.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
142.
pax
us
May 11th, 2011
1:41 pm
It's not just the Peace Corps that tries to cover up maltreatment of or violence against women. Harrassment still takes place in the U.S. workplace, despite - and perhaps in spite of - anti-harrassement policies and laws. Human resources departments villify the victim to keep their company out of legal trouble and do little or nothing to perpetrators but protect them - particularly if they are managers or execs. The power/money differential between the average harrassed individual and the company makes it extraordinarily difficult for individuals to fight back for justice, or even just for safety.
In the last decade this has gotten much worse, in no small part due to 'globalization' and the immigration policies that have allowed the number of foreign men working in the U.S. - legally or illegally - to explode. Many bring their cultures of disrespect towards independent, working women in the workplace... which is further fueled by and also further supports the two-faced U.S. culture of disrespect for and dominion over women.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
143.
charles
AK
May 11th, 2011
1:41 pm
It is amazing how publicity will spur on indifferent, complacent management. Promises, promises, promises.
This, sort of a Wikileaks expose of the Peace Corps.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
144.
volunteer
south africa
May 11th, 2011
1:42 pm
As a female current and returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I do not feel that this article accurately portrays the Peace Corps' attitude towards these issues. I have found that the safety and security of volunteers is Peace Corps' first priority. Though I do not deny that these individual responses to incidents of sexual assault are true, part of the reason that this is an issue is that many Peace Corps staff members are host country nationals who have very different ways of perceiving these situations. Peace Corps is working to provide better training for all staff not just medical and safety and security staff in how to respond when volunteers report these types of issues. Many volunteers in South Africa recently had the chance to meet with a task force within Peace Corps that is working to address these issues, and I among others were very impressed with their efforts.
Peace Corps has a very detailed process they must go through in order to determine if a site is appropriate for a volunteer. If a volunteer ever reports feeling unsafe, Peace Corps works with them to address the issue and does not hesitate to change them to a different site. In countries like South Africa where crime is a big issue, all volunteers live with families for their safety. South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, and the incidence of sexual assaults among volunteers is just a small fraction of that. This very large variation between the prevalence of sexual assaults between the two groups is a testament to how well placed and prepared Peace Corps Volunteers are.
On the other hand, many volunteers do not want to report issues that they experience to Peace Corps because they do not want to be asked to change sites. Volunteers also often do not report incidents that happen when they are breaking Peace Corps rules (i.e. traveling to places that are considered unsafe and off limits to volunteers). I think most volunteers would agree that Peace Corps is overprotective and make the decision to go against Peace Corps' policies and suggestions. How can Peace Corps guarantee the safety of these volunteers?
This is a very complicated issue and to assume that Peace Corps is doing nothing to address it or intentionally putting women in harm's way is to not understand the complex nature of the issue. I hope that people will think more critically before jumping to conclusions and assigning excessive blame in an agency that has worked for 50 years to promote gender equality all around the world.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
145.
Steve Bolger
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:43 pm
It really is pathetic to see your newspaper turn a blind eye to the golobal cultural green light to rape - the discouragement of raped women to terminate any pregnancy resulting from it.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
146.
Rosamond
UJ, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:43 pm
As a former Vista Volunteer in Walsenburgh, CO in 1972, I am fully behind
excavating the origins of rape, institutional rape, marital rape and eradicating
the toxicity connected to the role of the perpetrator by perhaps examining his
/her potential issues: mental make-up, emotional shut-down-ness, personality
traits, control issues and sexual addiction and whatever else...
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
147.
Val
Boston
May 11th, 2011
1:45 pm
AS a woman who moved to the US from Eastern Europe, I have found women here very naive and unprepared to handle the realities of the rest of the world. There are very few countries where women can walk around unaccompanied and unharassed. These same women who have lived under the sheltering of their families and colleges all their lives then decide to join the outside rough world, it's like sending lambs to lions. I have seen it with Peace Corp volunteers, US embassy staff etc. In many cases, it was a naivite that would prompt these women to act under "I am a free, grown up and I have the right to conduct my business unencumbered". Yes, in theory, this is correct but in reality most women get harassed all the time in the outside world. US grants more protection than most in educated circles. You have to get street smart and adapt and make sure that risks are mitigated by following some simple measures. The foremost of them all: do not wear reveling clothes of any kind. When I would tell that to the embassy staff in my country of origin, they would laugh and then complain why they got groped. How do you explain that in this culture, wearing clothes like that is like a buffet invitation.
It is sad to read about such tragic cases that the volunteers have gone through. I have daughters and often thought that the Peace Corp would be a great way to teach them about the world and about giving. I don't think I will do it now.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
148.
John Pozzerle
Katy, Texas
May 11th, 2011
1:49 pm
I can't help it but to wonder, how come didn't they institute safeguards and a policy from day one? Any personal safety consultant could have drafted a good one. The truth be said, the fact that government employees are not responsible for their actions (Only if they go against their superiors), makes them to disregard anything that might be in the way of what they want to do. I always tried to convince my children to get a government job; if they get one, there's not the possibility that they might die of fatigue for imprudents, or that they are going to be responsible for what they do or say. These women should know that their government will treat them like it treats veterans, uses them and throws them away.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
149.
Steve Bolger
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
1:49 pm
Yep, it really is pathetic how America actually promotes the propagation of rapists by discouraging abortion of fetuses resulting from rape. There is no evil that America can't protect under the mantle of religion.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
150.
Ken Legacki
Anchorage, Alaska
May 11th, 2011
2:11 pm
Sarah Palin, while Mayor of Wasilla, ordered that rape victims be charged several hundred dollars for the forensic rape kits. A state law had to be passed prohibiting rape victims from being charge for the forensic kits in Wasilla, the only town in Alaska to charge rape victims. Amazingly, so called educated people, like fox news and other republicans, still give this woman credence. Thank god she is not hearing this testimony, although polls are being conducted in Arizona to determine whether she should run for Kyl's senate seat.
Recommend Recommended by 6 Readers
151.
LMitchell
Boston
May 11th, 2011
2:12 pm
I have nothing but respect and admiration for all the women coming forward to report these atrocities. Thank you for your courage and bravery.
As a returned Peace Corps volunteer, I can agree with the statements that Peace Corps must drastically change its response not only to the crime itself, but more importantly, to the victims. There is no excuse for the despicable treatment of sexual assault victims and serious reform must take place.
That being said- in the horrific light Peace Corps as a whole is now being portrayed- I feel compelled to offer another side of the story. Peace Corps is (and I think always will be) the most extraordinary adventure of my life. I was able to immerse myself in a culture so different from what I am used to and in doing so, learned more about myself and the world than I could have ever imagined. Further, I have never felt safer than I did during my two years in Niger (2008-2010). I slept outside every night and never felt threatened.
Also, contrary to some of the other posts, I feel the Peace Corps mission is more applicable and effective than ever. Its grassroots mission is sustainable and the positive reputation it builds for America, which I have seen first-hand, is extraordinary.
I know that as an organization it must change and grow in response to the course of history and the needs of its volunteers. It is imperative that these reforms be put in place. I would just ask that people also acknowledge the good Peace Corps has done over the years and not only focus on its mistakes. I would also ask that those considering Peace Corps, do not completely change their minds in response to this negative press. It is grave and should not be taken lightly, there are risks that come with every out of the ordinary endeavor. Just remember that these horrible assaults are not the norm in Peace Corps and as long as Peace Corps responds in an appropriate measure, prospective volunteers should not be deterred from Peace Corps as it can be an indescribably rewarding experience, just as it was not only for myself, but thousands of other volunteers.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
152.
WL
Minneapolis
May 11th, 2011
2:12 pm
The experience of many PCVs suggest that the Peace Corps program could use some significant changes. First, the widespread comments that college-age PCVs approach their time in the PC as an extended college-party basically defeats the purpose of the program. Added to that, American women have the stereotype of being the most promiscuous women on the planet, along with being white, perhaps provocatively dressed for the destination country, and often attractive, all lead to a greater risk of rape. This is unfortunate, but a very well known reality. Younger women may not fully appeciate that reality when the enter the Peace Corps, being more idealistic, and may through naivety or undue risk-taking fall victim to rape.
The obvious solution is to make the Peace Corps a program for older adults- 30+ and older. More mature, more to offer to the host country, while being less likely to fall victim to rape- both from better sense, greater understanding, and less risk-taking. Audrey Hepburn, in her later years, didn't get raped in all her years of volunteering in the Africa and elsewhere, and had a significant impact. Could the same be said for a 23-year-old American Audrey Hepburn? I don't think so.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
153.
PedernalesPatty
Austin, TX
May 11th, 2011
2:12 pm
I was raped in Houston in 1974 and was fortunate enough to have family and friends for support, along with the D.A.'s office during the arrest and prosecution of a serial rapist. My son is set to leave for the PC in a couple of months. I will insist that he read this article and all comments associated with it. Thank you for sounding the alarm about dangers in the world. My admiration goes to all the women who are speaking out, as I know how conflicting it is to publically identify onseself as a rape victim. These brave women are correct to demand better accountability from the PC. I encourage them to continue to seek comfort from family and friends.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
154.
Kate
Seattle
May 11th, 2011
2:12 pm
As a PCV in Dominica, I was put in an extremely unfortunate situation when a neighbor started stalking me. I repeatedly asked for help as the man would stand outside my house 24 hours a day screaming that he wanted to rape and kill me. Not only was I told to "pick my battles," I was informed that it would be too much work to switch villages or islands. I promptly packed my bags and left. I fully support the mission of the Peace Corps, and I do not regret my time spent as a PCV, however I feel the organization is severely deluded if they believe, as Williams said, that they "do not place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments."
Recommend Recommended by 13 Readers
155.
Ann
San Mateo, CA
May 11th, 2011
2:29 pm
I hope Peace Corps Director, Aaron S. Williams and his senior staff will read ALL of the posts made here and there will be a complete revamping of the agency's practices. I also hope Congress will call for a full investigation into why the program that was working -- identified by poster #90 was shut done. Worth repeating here: "In 2008, the then Director of Peace Corps determined that 1811 federal agents of the Office of Inspector General, who were specifically trained in sexual assault and homicide investigations, should not be conducting those duties."
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
156.
Didi
Philadelphia
May 11th, 2011
2:30 pm
I do not want to cheapen in any way what happened in any way to these women. However, if a study were conducted of any other group of women (students, nurses in hospitals, office employees, custodial staff) the results would be pretty similar.
This article makes it seem as though this is a problem in far-away places where the culture is "different" (and implicitly "inferior") but the reality is that sexual assault and rape happen every day and everywhere and will continue happening until blaming the victim stops and people are held accountable for their behavior.
Every time the NYT publishes something about rape or gender, commentors come out of the woodwork, blaming women (and male victims), telling them to keep their mouths shut, and stay in their place. This is completely unacceptable. Rape and sexual assault are the fault of the aggressor, not the victim.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
157.
KraftPaper
USA
May 11th, 2011
2:30 pm
Please publish the names of her PC accusers for the world to know they are enablers. Go to the colleges and let women know. Don't ever risk your own life for another unless it is your child's or spouse. That is a simple fact of life. You can't save others after u are gone.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
158.
MGD
Florida
May 11th, 2011
2:31 pm
This just convinced me not to serve in the Peace Corps after college, as I had been considering. As someone who's been sexually abused in my life, I don't need to chance another trauma if the risk is that high.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
159.
Aryuna
New York
May 11th, 2011
2:42 pm
just don't go there. nobody invited them there.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
160.
Gloria
Indiana
May 11th, 2011
2:51 pm
What the article forgets to mention are the nice and dedicated foreigners that make the experience of these volunteers remarkable, helping us turn these neophytes into mature Americans with strong foreign experience. This rape could have happened anywhere, including right here in the United States. To imply somehow that Americans are impeccable and that all foreigners are a marauding band of lawless thugs is a mis-characterization. I am not in any way rubbishing her awful experience, just that the writer of this article has a viewpoint that leaves a lot to be desired given how this is presented.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
161.
bkonash
New York, NY
May 11th, 2011
2:55 pm
Sending young adults alone into unfamiliar environments is a bad idea. The Boy Scouts and the Mormon Missionaries use the buddy system. Why can't the Peace Corps have the same policy?
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
162.
joan
new york
May 11th, 2011
3:10 pm
I am _so_ pleased to read this article and know about this activism on the part of American victims. It's about time; "about time" was years ago, when the PC was founded. Congratulations to you, activists, on this work, and strength to you for continuing. This is very iimportant.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
163.
hen3ry
New York
May 11th, 2011
4:31 pm
I think that the real bottom line is that rape happens to women and most people still believe that women ask for it. If the majority of rapes were done to men the attitude would be completely different. No other crime is so personal as rape. No other crime can make a woman pregnant and that is a terrible thing because if she's in a place where she is forced to have the child (and doesn't want to), she will be faced with a constant reminder of what happened.
As a woman I share one fear with every other woman on the planet: that someone will rape me and, when I was still getting my period, that I will get pregnant. Men don't have to worry that someone will violate their bodily integrity with impunity and get away with it as often as women. Even in the United States we are leaning towards rules that will make it impossible for women to control their own bodies and reproductive lives. One no longer has to go abroad to experience such punitive attitudes towards women. It's right here, now.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
164.
Sally L.
North Shore, MA
May 11th, 2011
4:36 pm
When I was in college in the early 1980's, there was never any talk of rapes among women volunteers. (or it was being covered up even back then). I am wondering if it has changed over the years and the management at the top care less and are not training people well enough (women) to survive in a foreign culture. Something has changed and it is too bad. It had a good name for a long time but I am afraid it won't be for much long.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
165.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
retiree
Lincolnshire, IL
May 11th, 2011
4:37 pm
I did not hear of many incidents of violence against PCVs during my tour of duty in Botswana (1974-1978). A PCV from my group was critically injured in a road accident. He was riding in the back of a pick-up when the pick-up overturned and a gasoline barrel crushed his skull. Peace Corps chartered a DC-8 to transport him from Botswana to South Africa, then evacuated him to a hospital in Germany prior to his return to the USA. He survived his accident, but suffered physical hardships as a result.
A female PCV in our village was attacked by a young man, but she was able to fend him off. The young man showed up at our school wearing the PCV's head scarf, obviously as a trophy.
She pressed charges using the local village court (called a kgolta) and there was a public trial. The young man was acquitted of the charges, a typical her word against his. Shortly thereafter, the young man was found deceased, we were told courtesy of the local witch doctor who decided that the young man had done enough the humiliate the village where we lived.
A German volunteer died in our village as a result of a motor cycle accident. His parents were convinced that his death was result of his minimal correspondence with a faction of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Truth be told, the young man had been out drinking and lost control of his motor cycle. The cycle hit a tree, resulting in his cause of death being a broken neck.
My point, really, is that I am shocked to read of the recent deaths and acts of violence against PCVs. Perhaps this is something that is new, as I don't recall reading about these kinds of things in the 1960s. Perhaps even Shriver wanted this information buried. This is hard to know.
I remember speaking to a fellow who was a witness to William Olson's death in Ethiopia in 1966. William was killed and eaten by a crocodile. The story I was told was that Peace Corps didn't tell his parents exactly what occurred. The parents had to find out through other channels. A web site listing Peace Corps deaths describes the cause of Olson's death as an "animal bite."
When I attended the 25th anniversary of the Peace Corps in DC in 1986, the first speaker was a young man whose brother was the first PCV killed in the line of duty, a volunteer serving in Columbia who died in an airplane crash.
The fact that Peace Corps administration has looked lightly on this new problem in troubling. Let's hope that a pore positive outcome as a result of these articles and the Congressional hearing.
Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers
166.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
beb
korea
May 11th, 2011
4:48 pm
I'm an RPCV, Ukraine. My experience was that a full 15% of my group was physically assaulted during our 27 months in country. The majority of those assaulted did not report it to admin because it was widely understood that blame was immediately placed on the volunteer. My number of 15% is from people I personally knew. I would assume the number is actually higher.
This after a scandal of sorts that broke just before I joined PC involving a couple of unsolved deaths that exposed PC failures in maintaining decent safety standards for volunteers. At that time it was found that PC was wildly underreporting their crime statistics and they were supposedly going to make changes to resolve that issue. Instead of doing that, they simply created an atmosphere that caused the volunteers themselves to underreport.
When you make it clear that people that report crimes will immediately be assumed to be responsible then of course your incident reports will fall. That sure worked out for their purposes.
Finally, the assaults I've mentioned above are all physical attacks on volunteers, usually on the streets. I'm not including sexual assaults.
All of the advocacy I see for Peace Corps in the past couple of years has been to expand, expand, expand. Peace Corps doesn't need to expand at all and instead should be shrinking. Shrinking down to ensure volunteers are in locations that can truly use their help and being more selective in choosing volunteers that have the skills to help. And maybe placing more emphasis on volunteer safety than simply building a bigger organization.
Recommend Recommended by 19 Readers
167.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Paul
East Lansing, MI
May 11th, 2011
4:48 pm
I am female and had a wonderful experience teaching English in China with the Peace Corps. Peace Corps must be so different country-to-country, year-to-year, place-to-place, etc. In Sichuan Province in China, I was treated with utmost respect, taught wonderful students at a small college alongside other wonderful English teachers, and had a fulfilling two years of volunteerism in which I gained much more than I could give. The Peace Corps described in the article and in some of the comments sounds completely foreign to me. I believe the reports, but want readers to know that Peace Corps is also a rewarding experience and works for many.
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers
168.
Marguerite de Valois
Key West
May 11th, 2011
4:48 pm
Is it possible that Ted Poe has suddenly seen the light and decided to dedicate his congressional career to combatting rape? It's possible.
Is it possible that Ted Poe (enthusiastic birther and anti-choicer) sees this as a vehicle for attacking the Peace Corps? Now that seems downright probable.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
169.
tinfoil hattie
Northern Virginia
May 11th, 2011
4:48 pm
"We want the United States to rush in and treat them as a victim of crime like they would be treated here at home."
In other words, blamed, shamed, and doubted.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
170.
Susan S.
San Francisco
May 11th, 2011
4:49 pm
As a woman who lived abroad for two years, in my twenties, via a Peace Corps-like organization, I can think of two key reasons why this kind of under-reporting of and under-responsiveness to sexual assaults exists:
First, many teaching-abroad and development NGOs exert an unstated but distinct male-centricism. Not enough emphasis is paid to the differences in experience that Western women will have from their male counterparts over extended stays in foreign and developing countries.
Second, a strong emphasis on cultural sensitivity can also translate into dampening down,if not outright jettisoning, legitimate concerns about the treatment of young Western women in cultures where the status of women is often subjugated and devalued.
The combination can, and obviously does, create a dilemma for idealistic young Western women who may be induced to keep quiet about sexual attacks, and create a climate of innate hostility to their legitimate concerns for safety.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
171.
tinfoil hattie
Northern Virginia
May 11th, 2011
4:49 pm
I feel for these women. However, I can only pity their naivete at the do-good attitude in these obvious backwards/dangerous places where the indigenous females more likely than not suffer the same fate.
"the indigenous females"? As in, those "females" are some sort of exotic species indigenous to that country?
Your bias against women is quite clear. Blame rape victims for the way people treat them, eh? Stupid rape victims! They should know better! How dare they go out in public, trying to perform a service, when they might "get raped"?
Why aren't you saying: "MEN: STOP RAPING."? That's the "rape prevention" program I want to see.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
172.
S. Bond
Northern California
May 11th, 2011
5:22 pm
This article is distressing. I'm very sorry to hear that the same lack of skill, caring and professionalism continues to this day on the part of PC Staff in the treatment of female Peace Corps Volunteers who have been assaulted. It made me very angry to hear the limp, untrue comment made by the director of the Peace Corps, Aaron S. Williams, when "...He insisted that it was safe for women to serve in the Peace Corps. "We do not place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments," he said. This is not true today -- witness all the letters from former PCVs commenting on this article -- nor was it true when I was a volunteer in Morocco in the mid-'70's. As the writers of many of the letters claim, a woman living in a 3rd world country as a PCV is inherently in an unsafe situation, but we all chose to do the job for a variety of reasons and because we thought/think that the PC Staff will support us. It's been 36 years since I was a PCV and many PC Directors have come and gone and the lack of support for the female volunteers continues. I'm not very hopeful that a change will happen.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
173.
miklos halasz
sweden
May 11th, 2011
5:22 pm
Can hardly believe this hapened . The people working in those countries are protected oficialy.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
174.
bearsrus
Santa FE, NM
May 11th, 2011
5:23 pm
Here is my greatest fear. That in the current world climate in conjunction with our current congress
and the host of current world leaders, that no one...not anyone of power or influence...cares.
That the fate of women in this country, and the world, all tales of horror and abuse, fall on indifferent or deaf ears. It certainly reads that way and I am completely baffled as to why. Of course, there are a multitude of cultural, religious, social, and economic reasons that women are tormented and abused but who will step up and stop it? Why is this "ok?" Or "not our biggest problem?" When you destroy womankind, you destroy the world. Is that the goal?
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
175.
Dude
New York
May 11th, 2011
5:23 pm
"...other Democrats are skittish about it. They worry that the legislation, and Wednesday's hearing, might be used to undermine the Peace Corps - the legacy of a Democratic president - and cut its funding."
DISGUSTING
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
176.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Kim LeBiavant
San Francisco, CA
May 11th, 2011
5:25 pm
Bravo brave women for speaking up on this matter!! As a Returned Peace Corps volunteer (Kiribati Islands 2000-2003) I have experienced this first hand. In addition to the sexual harrasment I endured thoughout my stay, my house was broken into 3 times and I narrowly avoided assult. The wholke village knew my attacker and did nothing. The position of the Peace Corp Kiribati Admin was certainly victim blaming as they tried to tell me not to dress inappropiatly or "try to fit into the culture better"! Indeed, the fundemental issue was that single/unmarried women do not live alone in Polynesian islands. The PC was setting us up for disaster by sending us out to live alone. I was once told that I-Kiribati had the highest sexual assult rate of any non-muslim PC serving country. I have not been able to verify this, but the PC is no longer sending volunteers there
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
177.
HM
Pompano Beach, FL
May 11th, 2011
5:25 pm
Oh my God. A female that decides to be a PCV considering what I have read in the comments must be either delusional or severely uninformed.
Delusional to believe that the deprivations suffered by the people populating their assignment locations will somehow paradoxically engender their appreciation, or at the very least humanity - especially when their cultures are often intrinsically opposed to this, and the bad behavior of fellow PCV's is further stoking the fire.
Uninformed as to the real dangers implicit in working with an organization in a foreign land that bears such a terrifyingly callous 'corporate culture'.
No doubt that the PC was a wonderful JFK-era concept, but the devil is in the details, and way too many well meaning women are coming face to face with him. There's lots of opportunities to help/change the world in your own country. It's not as sexy, but at least you have some semblance of protection under the law.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
178.
roland1968
Denver
May 11th, 2011
5:43 pm
If rape support and recovery were a significant part of quarterly earnings, and Aaron S. Williams were the CEO of some global corpotation, he'd be fired yesterday.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
179.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Steve
Austin
May 11th, 2011
5:44 pm
I served as a PCV in Botswana from 1973-75, and lived just a few miles from the border with (then) Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). There was an active guerilla war going on a few miles away, and several of my fellow teachers were guerilla fighters by night. It has always been my impression that the organization was much too casual then about the potential for state-related violence; their policies about posting volunteers in war zones eventually became very strict.
These stories about individual sexual assaults on female Volunteers are troubling and completely plausible, and I can understand how the organization's political culture could attempt to suppress publicity and somehow try to blame the victims. Most Peace Corp staffers are based in national or regional capital cities, and they may associate their country program's longevity and their job security with how well they retain favor with host country government officials.
The reality of many (perhaps most?) developing countries is that the treatment of women is waay below current American standards of decency and fairness. After travelling extensively in the Middle East, including rural Yemen, I've always wondered how much courage it takes to be a female volunteer in a traditional Muslim society,
Recommend Recommended by 18 Readers
180.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Jon
the developing world
May 11th, 2011
11:02 pm
I'm currently a volunteer in the Peace Corps.
I commend the women in this story for forcefully raising this issue. The Peace Corps has failed to address the needs of many victims of sexual assault; it must do better. It should revamp the way it trains volunteers, the strategies it uses to keep volunteer safe, and - most importantly - how it responds to the victims of sexual assault.
As the debate about the safety of volunteers continues, however, we need to keep in mind that the experience of a PCV will always include substantial risk. The best PC training and strategic safety decisions cannot expunge all of the uncertainty and potential danger a PCV faces as a stranger among foreign customs and people. Indeed, lamentably, even in our familiar and highly-policed United States, sexual assaults occur all too frequently.
To dwell on the institutional failings of the Peace Corps in response to sexual assault threatens to discount the positive experiences that more than 200,000 American men and women have had (or are having) as Peace Corps Volunteers in foreign countries. Peace Corps creates cross-cultural friendships and connections; it allows volunteers to 'see themselves in someone else', enabling the personal growth of volunteers and building among host country nationals positive attitudes towards America. Peace Corps should continue.
It should also make drastic changes to how it approaches sexual assault. That starts in Washington - an infamous mess of bureaucracy, as most any PCV will attest. Still, most cases of poorly-handled sexual assault cases reported in this article occurred before Aaron Williams, a proven government administrator, was sworn in as director in 2009. I believe that with the public attention payed to the issue, and the leadership of Director Williams, we can expect PC to response swiftly and decisively to improve the institutional response to sexual assault. It has to.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
181.
Andy
Washington, DC
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
I am an RPCV and I feel for these volunteers who were victims twice over, once by an assailant and another by PC. I hope the inquiry determines what caused the staff to act dismissively of PCV victims. Because of the 5 year rule most of the American staff involved are no longer around. The biggest gift PC could give to PCVs/RPCVs and the host countries it works in is to model appropriate victim advocacy. This means sensitivity training for Host Country National PC employees, dialogue with local law enforcement and outreach to PCV communities on sexual assault. Yes we often bring the worst of American culture abroad (music, Hollywood, McDonalds, etc.) but in this case we can bring something much better.
With that said I think PC's risk management/personal responsibility training is appropriate. Alcohol and/or drugs coupled with poor decisions increases the risk of all sorts of things among them violent crime. PC shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water on this one. Rather couple this training for PCVs with staff training and host country outreach.
Also for reference, what is the incident of sexual assault for other non-defense U.S. personnel posted abroad? U.S. military? UN personnel? Other NGOs? It could be that the Peace Corps is actually doing better than its peers.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
182.
AndrewM
san diego, CA
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras. I agree with other comments that levels of support probably vary country by country. And it is deeply saddening to hear about rape victims being treated this way.
However, my own personal experience (not rape, but other serious incidents) with the Peace Corps support was outstanding. I was received by the PC Country Director (highest ranking PC official in a country) and granted access to world class caregivers. No expense was spared and I felt totally supported and empowered to finish the remainder of my service.
Again, the treatment of these victims is unacceptable and wrong. However, my experience is that this is not the general policy or approach of the US Peace Corps.
While it is true that Peace Corps volunteers serve in countries less safe than the USA, this is no reason not to serve. We should be able to proudly serve and know that when (not IF) something bad befalls one of us, that we have the full moral, physical and psychological support of the United States government.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
183.
Kate
NY, NY
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
As an RPCV, I am truly shocked to hear this story. I was injured while in service and the Peace Corps treated me spectacularly- I was treated better than I would have been in America. The Peace Corps' mission, value and ideals are extremely important especially in today's society and it is important to support them and encourage transparency and discussion in improving things. It is sad and horrible to hear of these stories, but bad things happen all the time, everywhere. I hope the Peace Corps can move forward and that this does not discourage future volunteers from partaking in a wonderfully life-changing experience.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
184.
rella
VA
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
For some reason, this article focuses on just one type of crime; namely, sexual assaults. Ther vast majority of violent crimes are of other types, including the one that is undeniably more serious than sexual assault; namely, homicide. I'm willing to bet that the majority of Peace Corps volunteers who are victims of violent crimes, and the vast majority of murder victimes, are male, if only because this is the pattern among the general population in most countries. (And it can't be an artifact of underreporting. Every homicide produces a dead body, or at least a missing person, so it is almost impossible to escape notice.)
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
185.
me
boston
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
Having served in the Foreign Service for a decade, I had occasion to regard PC volunteers in a variety of settings on a variety of continents. Sadly, I recall young women drinking heavily and dressing provocatively in their host countries. Not only is it inappropriate to fail to adapt to the culture one is posted to, but it can be very dangerous as well. The PC would do well to better advise their recruits as to how to conduct themselves in accordance with local custom.
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
186.
Liv
DC
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
i have a great deal of respect for the women who spoke out in this hearing. Clearly, from reading a lot of the readers' comments, this is not an uncommon problem.
I hope that the organization can get its act together and get help for past victims of sexual violence as well as make changes to try to reduce the chances of them happening in the future.
My understanding is that it has mostly become a "teaching English" organization rather than what it used to be. Shame.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
187.
Astrid Bidanec
Tampa, Fla.
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
At a minimum all female Peace Corps volunteers should be taught basic self defense moves as part of any training before they reach their destination. I would also prefer to see more energy and resources shifted towards rape prevention by any means possible. And I do agree that rapists should not get away with this crime anywhere in the world. If Peace Corps can't protect female volunteers they should not recruit them in the first place.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
188.
Darcy
PNW
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
My 21-year old just received her PC post to a poverty-stricken country. This article scares me, and I hope change results. However, as for the rapes and sexual harassment, and the lack of support: it reminds me of college campuses in the United States. Young people are assaulted or harassed, and some kill themselves as a result. The culture of academia is to cover it up, keep it secret. What needs to change here? How about everything?
Recommend Recommended by 4 Readers
189.
WillfromSF
San Francisco, CA
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
As a returned PCV (Fiji 1968-70) insensitivity on the part of the Peace Corps administration to the volunteer's plight is nothing new. The credo then as now was don't stir up any controversy and offend the locals and that's what the PC Administration most cares about lest they be asked to leave the host country. Not mentioned in the article was the 1976 case of Deborah Gardner a PCV in the Kingdom of Tonga who was killed by a fellow PCV who lusted for his victim. The Peace Corps and the State Department did all they could to get the perpetrator off in his criminal trial in Tonga and have him shipped home to be put in a mental hospital. But when he arrived home he was completely set free. For more on this case check out this excellent article in New York magazine:
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_ 10403/
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
190.
amanda113
NY
May 11th, 2011
11:07 pm
In addition to all the issues highlighted by the article -- the callous behavior of the PC, the issues that come with male-dominated societies, there is one I would like to add. Please women, do not forget that you are in a foreign land. Be careful. I am Indian-American, and every time I go home, I can't tell you how many Western women I see wearing short shorts, tank tops, low cut blouses, etc. Do they deserve to be harassed? NO! Of course not. But they are clueless about where they are, and what is typically expected of women. Or maybe they think they are making a point, but they often end up getting groped or stalked or cat called in the most unpleasant way, and it's awful to see. Please, please. Talk to a native. Take their advice. Cover up, and be brave. Ask men you trust to escort you, avoid going out after nightfall, be smart. It's such a shame to see these beautiful, strong, intelligent women who become victims of such brutes. People may assume that women don't go out without male relatives because they are being oppressed -- well, yes, that may be a part of it, but they may also know something you don't. It may simply be unsafe. Be wary. We need you to come back home in one piece.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
191.
barbL
Los Angeles
May 11th, 2011
11:08 pm
Re: #120
Years ago, in the '80', I worked with an attorney who specialized in obtaining Social Security Disability benefits for clients. He told me once that he had seen several persons who had been Peace Corps volunteers and had returned with their health permanently impaired.
I wonder just how much prospective volunteers are cautioned in regards to such diseases as malaria, dengue, parasitic diseases, and HIV.
Americans have no idea how badly off many parts of the world are or what their risks are.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
192.
Dee
USA
May 12th, 2011
7:52 am
The Peace Corps are just as "idealistic" as Teach for America, except, more dangerous and more risky. I personally do not see a need to send young, nubile men and women to do this type of work. Even young men have a risk of being assualted, raped, or murdered. Why not open an elderly Peace Corps for those who are retired and would have little to no chance of being sexually assualted? It's a win-win situation.
But of course we idealize youth.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
193.
erin
U.S.
May 12th, 2011
7:52 am
The reaction of some commenters here is truly unfortunate. To those of you who would like to blame this on a) savage foreign countries, b) naive women who dare to set foot in said countries, or c) a few bad apples: you are deluding yourselves.
'Indigenous females' in the good old U S of A can experience the same thing. For that matter: what makes any of you think that men associated with the Peace Corps from *this* country have never assaulted people? And the Peace Corps hardly has a monopoly on institutional misogyny. In case you haven't noticed, we have plenty of backward, paleolithic male pigs in this country.
The kind of re-victimization these women describe -- and if you're not sufficiently appalled, please see the congressional testimony for further details -- is at least as morally depraved as rape itself. People who respond this way to another person's experience do not deserve to hold jobs that require advanced communication skills. Sadly, you I've heard similar tales from multiple young women who never left America.
I agree with others who suggested that anyone with a hand in this kind of behavior should be fired, period. Those who look the other way or excuse it are complicit in the savage conduct they profess to find shocking in polite company.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
194.
Madame Lafarge
Hawaii
May 12th, 2011
7:55 am
I think the Peace Corps is a classic example of idealism running up against the bureaucracy of a Washington based organization compounded with a cover your patootie attitude that waxed and waned over the years. The Peace Corps is still a great idea and a great deal for America. It is sad that some Volunteers were treated so shamefully and shabbily by an organization that could not always live up to the ideals that started it and have sustained it. In the Marshall Islands where I was stationed only married couples were initially allowed to the isolated outer islands. Single males were allowed to go. The single females were restricted to the District Center. That policy was changed and single women were allowed 10 years later when I worked as a Peace Corps trainer. Peace Corps is no longer in the Marshall Islands. World Teach, another idealistic organization is and has about 50 volunteers just in the Marshalls. Single women are allowed in the outer islands. Predictably, when single women are in isolated circumstances, misunderstandings amplified by language and culture occur, but have been infrequent. I know of no sexual assaults in the Marshalls (that doesn't mean they didn't occur and were covered up) but one did occur in neighboring Kosrae. Violence against women is perhaps the norm in many cultures and the Marshalls is now dealing with that situation after the brutal beating/murder of a wife by her husband. There is no easy solution, but sadly the Peace Corps has not made the right choice in the past. Let us hope this publicity will help both the Peace Corps and potential Volunteers make the right choices.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
195.
Joe
San Diego
May 12th, 2011
7:57 am
There are many insightful, informed and reflective comments on this story. My only addition would be to say that as a Peace Corps Volunteer you work on a US government passport, take the US gov't oath, and are assumed to be a US ambassador in all that you do in your host country. The Peace Corps is not a volunteer organization, or an international nonprofit. Currently, it is still run largely as if it were, however. Standards and protocols are left almost entirely up to individual countries, not institutionalized agency-wide. Until security and other matters are standardized, i.e. predictable, across all countries the Peace Corps operates in, we will continue to have to rely largely on personal anecdotes to discern what is happening across the Peace Corps as a whole.
In my assault case, during service in Southern Africa ('04-'05), our Peace Corps security officer (a local) wanted to go with me, alone and without notification of the local police or US embassy, and personally confront the armed gang that performed the assault. I said no, and was subsequently told that Peace Corps was "disappointed" I wasn't accepting their authority over the issue.
A procedure that would greatly assist in in-country Peace Corps' handling of security events would be to pair an American with a local. Have security handled by a bi-national team. Americans expect a certain degree of legal, physical, mental reaction to violence, sexual and otherwise, which is often dramatically different than local interpretations of offenses. A bi-national security team would be better equipped to navigate local customs and enforcement procedures, while offering US gov't employees the reaction they (in my view rightly) expect.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
196.
Lily
Fairfax, VA
May 12th, 2011
7:57 am
Why are we suddenly outraged that American volunteers are being attacked without retribution, when millions of girls and women in the same host countries are viciously raped everyday, with absolutely no emotional or legal support?
Yes we have a sophisticated judicial system and resources that offer emotional support, but it is not our birthright as Americans to deserve better treatment.
The sexual abuse of women is unfortunately not new, and the press coverage that Peace Corps is receiving demonstrates its influence as a prestigious aid organization from the United States. Gender relations in developing countries are not going to evolve overnight, but it is our responsibility as a rich country to serve as a role model and put pressure on governments to support the welfare of their women.
In many of the countries where PC volunteers serve, women are seen as second-class citizens and their troubles are rarely recognized. I think it's despicable that the Peace Corps administration is following the same mentality as the local male-dominated culture by failing to adequately support its volunteers. But at the end of the day, we should be up in arms at the maltreatment of women everywhere, not just Americans. Peace Corps needs to serve as a role model, not a perpetrator. (And let's stay informed and see a bit more news coverage on ALL of the women, regardless of nationality, who are suffering from sexual abuse!!)
Recommend Recommended by 2 Readers
197.
Jen in Astoria
Astoria, NY
May 12th, 2011
7:58 am
I think that all of this raises a bigger question:
Why do we bother? As many have pointed out, there's plenty to be done here in the USA, and their labors may actually have lasting results here.
When you have cultures that are steeped in poverty and devalue women, temporarily helping some of them in some small way has noble intentions but apparently does nothing to change the long-term situation on the ground there.
It's similar to the debacle of AIDS prevention in Africa--you can carpet bomb the entire continent with anti-retrovirals and condoms but until women aren't seen as chattel, have some control over their reprodctive choices, and rape isn't a standard method of warfare and social control, nothing is going to change.
Sending college kids off to be some kind of Great White Hope under circumstances like that just seems naive at best and arrogant at worst.
If the Peace Corp must go abroad, let it be for short-term relief work in places hit by acute, not endemic crisises.
Recommend Recommended by 3 Readers
198.
Karen Reiter
Sarasota, Fl
May 12th, 2011
7:59 am
As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from 40 years ago, I find this news about PC Hdqts to be devastating! Not only is this Peace Corps attitude disgusting and demeaning, I thank God I did not encourage my daughter to sign up. I must say that after my PC service I worked in DC at PC World Hdqts. At that time I hosted a PCV, who was brought home because she was gang-raped in Costa Rica. Perhaps she volunteered in a different Age, and did not or would not criticize PC. In that era, no one spoke easily of rape. If she was treated well by medical and psychological personnel, it would be interesting to know when this more reasonable and more in-tune with PC's image changed and why.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
199.
Mary
Atlanta, GA
May 12th, 2011
8:00 am
Sadly, rape is not even a crime that many governments around the world recognize or prosecute. However, that does not make it any the less a crime. Even in this country we have fought for decades to get attention and prosecution focused on this crime.
It is uncontionable that the Peace Corps would hide or in any way deminish the reporting of a rape. Regardless of the country, it is wrong.
Saying that, there are many countries where they Peace Corps has no right to send a woman. I hate to say it, but too many countries really don't care. Women are held responsible for getting rape. It's a joke.
Wonder what ever happened to the poor woman in Libia that tried to get her voice heard by the media and was dragged, undefended by witnesses, out of the Hotel to be 'questioned.'
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
200.
HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Julie
Raleigh, NC
May 12th, 2011
12:28 pm
I'm an RPVC who returned last year. I returned early, ostensibly due to health problems. The fact is I was harassed and abused regularly. Nothing physical; purely verbal and emotional. The people managing the Peace Corps didn't want to hear the real story, and I was encouraged to put on my exit forms that my problems were due to health. I complied to make my exit as easy as possible. Also, any American Peace Corps management who would have helped was out of the office the week I went through the process of exiting, so there was nobody there to hear me.
The truth is that my Peace Corps Program Manager, a native to the country I served, harassed me. He stared at me continuously during classes and lectures, in a way that was unnerving. Because he was my manager, he was the person who decided on the location of my assignment and was in a position to arrange to keep me as close to him as possible, which he did. But he never touched me and did nothing illegal. He didn't do anything that anyone would see. Eventually, when I approached him to talk he denied everything, then accused me of false wrong-doings - complaints he said were made by the locals I worked with. Those accusations were not true - I still work with those people occasionally today via email. I have not told them of my problems with the Corps, and they've made it clear, in a published article, that they think very highly of me. So he must have made up those accusations. But his lies go unverified - he is not questioned and he is not held accountable.
The man frightened me so much writing about it still unnerves me today (a year later). I ended my Peace Corps assignment after only six months and returned to the US confused, traumatized and weak. After three months I finally communicated with the Peace Corps in DC, but found nobody to turn to. I wrote to my state senators (Kagan and Burr) that they shouldn't allow the Peace Corps to grow without a management overhaul, and received back some gobbledy-goop about budget cuts.
After some research I learned of many women who have had problems in the Peace Corps and all had run into the same blank wall: nobody in the Peace Corps would/could help.
Like most NYT responders, I believe the Peace Corps can serve a wonderful purpose. But it's not doing that now. It needs to be closely managed. Its American and native managers need well-defined positions with frequent, verified accountability. Its American managers must stay in the country more and have counselors available for them to handle their own problems (they're often under more stress than the volunteers). Their jobs are political, so they should be assured no political retribution will follow their counseling.
And the Peace Corps offices in DC have to stop telling themselves that everything is fine. I heard Aaron Williams this week on the news when he said that they "never send women to dangerous areas," which is absurd. Every country they send people to is dangerous. Face up to the reality, folks. Please.
Oldest
Newest
Previous of 9
201.
Richard Orb
Chicago, IL
May 12th, 2011
5:09 pm
The Peace Corps is a fine expression of American idealism, service and soft power that Michael Buckler speaks of above in his email. As a celebrant at the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan last October, and as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer in Papua New Guinea from 1988-89, I worry about unfavorable publicity and damage to the Peace Corps image. There is always room for improvement in administering the programs around the world in so many countries and the security and protection of volunteers must be foremost, of course. In addition, the scope of the Peace Corps should be expanded and made an even more visible extension of America's interest in international understanding, in world health, and in reaching out to others in the global community.
In my Peace Corps group in Papua New Guinea one of our young women was sexually attacked and beaten; this was traumatic for all of us. Barbaric behavior occurs in all cultures and is a challenge for all of us. Our colleague was treated with compassion and solicitude by the country director and staff and is hugely honored in memory by people like me for her service. I was chased while innocently jogging on a mountain road by a man wielding a crude spear. I outran him, probably because he was imbued with a mid-day drunk. Another time, a friend's borrowed car was almost stolen. All Peace Corps volunteers have their own harrowing experiences, and many, many more memories of fun encounters, exciting adventures, and good and hard-working people. I am so proud to have been a teacher with the Peace Corps. It is a program well worth our support.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
202.
rella
VA
May 12th, 2011
5:10 pm
#187: "At a minimum all female Peace Corps volunteers should be taught basic self defense moves as part of any training before they reach their destination....If Peace Corps can't protect female volunteers they should not recruit them in the first place."
Why do these statements not apply equally to male Peace Corps volunteers? As I pointed out in an earlier comment, male PCVs are probably victims of violence at a higher rate than fenale PCVs, as that is the pattern in most countries. This is especially true for homicide, which is the one offense that is undeniably more serious than sexual assault.
Recommend Recommended by 1 Reader
203.
Nora K.
Chicago, IL
May 13th, 2011
8:14 am
I am a RPCV Benin 2008-2010 who served the amazing Kate Puzey, RIP 1984-2009. I am lucky to have known her. Though Kate was not raped, she was murdered by a former Peace Corps employee, in the middle of the night, after he found out she had turned him into Peace Corps for sleeping with volunteer trainees and his young, female students.
In my opinion, the Peace Corps is embarrassing. Their negligence, failure to realize the severity of situations, and kneejerk reactions to cover it up have finally caught up with them. Unfortunately, it was too late for many of these women, including Kate, who lost her life.
It's hard for me to say we should close Peace Corps all together. But I am certainly not willing to fight for them.
Recommend Recommended by 0 Readers
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: May, 2011; Speaking Out; Sexual Assault and Harassment
When this story was posted in May 2011, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers 
 | Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years
As we move into the Peace Corps' second fifty years, what single improvement would most benefit the mission of the Peace Corps? Read our op-ed about the creation of a private charitable non-profit corporation, independent of the US government, whose focus would be to provide support and funding for third goal activities. Returned Volunteers need President Obama to support the enabling legislation, already written and vetted, to create the Peace Corps Foundation. RPCVs will do the rest. |
 | How Volunteers Remember Sarge
As the Peace Corps' Founding Director Sargent Shriver laid the foundations for the most lasting accomplishment of the Kennedy presidency. Shriver spoke to returned volunteers at the Peace Vigil at Lincoln Memorial in September, 2001 for the Peace Corps 40th. "The challenge I believe is simple - simple to express but difficult to fulfill. That challenge is expressed in these words: PCV's - stay as you are. Be servants of peace. Work at home as you have worked abroad. Humbly, persistently, intelligently. Weep with those who are sorrowful, Care for those who are sick. Serve your wives, serve your husbands, serve your families, serve your neighbors, serve your cities, serve the poor, join others who also serve," said Shriver. "Serve, Serve, Serve. That's the answer, that's the objective, that's the challenge." |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: NY Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Speaking Out; SA
PCOL47188
23
