*WASHINGTON – Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan called for tougheraction against sexual assault in the US military Thursday after an annualPentagon report said the number of assaults in 2018 had risen from recentyears.*

Sexual assaults reported by Defense Department employees, both men andwomen, jumped 13 per cent last year to 7,263 compared to 2017.

Moreover, actual sexual assaults were likely to be about triple thereported number, given the estimate that just one out of three victims inthe military file a complaint.

“It is clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment are persistentchallenges,” Shanahan said in a statement.

“To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectationswe have for ourselves or for each other. This is unacceptable.”

Based on a survey taken only every two years, the report said that not onlythe number but the prevalence of sexual assault was on the rise in 2018.

Around 6.2 per cent of women in the Department of Defense experiencedsexual assault or unwanted sexual contact in 2018, compared to 4.3 per centtwo years earlier, according to the report.

The level for men was much lower and relatively stable: 0.7 per centexperienced assault in 2018, slightly higher than 0.6 per cent two yearsago.

The problem was worst in the Marines: some 10.7 per cent of women in thatservice reported sexual assault last year, compared to 7.5 per cent in theNavy and lower rates in the other services.

Sexual assaults on men from all services was in the 0.7-0.8 per cent range.

But the overall estimates for assaults reported and not reported underscorethe problem for both genders: last year, the Pentagon estimates, more than13,000 women were assaulted and more than 7,000 men.*Assaults target youngest recruits*

The report showed that the youngest women were at the highest risk, andthat their attackers were like them most often of low rank, equal to orslightly higher than the victim.

That pointed to the need for more understanding of how younger recruitsinteract, especially with the rise of social media, according to experts.

“We have to look and see what is … happening with the 17-24 year-olds thatour programs are not accounting for,” said Nate Galbreath, deputy directorof the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.

“That is one the things that we want to investigate: to kind of see whatrisks are posed by using social media sites.”

Shanahan told a Congressional panel Wednesday that said he supported aproposal to seek a specific crime for sexual harassment under themilitary’s unique justice system.

“We will criminalize certain activities in this next year to reflect theseriousness that we take on certain behaviour.” he said. -APP/AFP