In November, the UK defence secretary Ben Wallace met with senior members of the British army to address the numerous allegations of harassment and sexual violence hanging over the country’s armed forces. Recent claims that a British soldier murdered a Kenyan woman in 2012 were preceded by a report on the lived experiences of British servicewomen, published by the defence select committee in July. Of the 4,200 women who submitted evidence for the report, 62% said they had experienced some form of abuse when serving.
This abuse took the form of bullying, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape, “some of which – even more disturbingly – involved senior officers acting as wrongdoers,” said the report. Women also spoke about procedural failures in the handling of allegations, including concerns over disclosure of sensitive details by the service police to the chain of command, and the reluctance of the chain of command to report a sexual assault to the service police. “When things go wrong, they go dramatically wrong,” the report said.
