(Washington) US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order reforming military justice to make sexual violence in the military a crime and not just a misdemeanor, after years of unsuccessful attempts by the Pentagon to fight against this scourge.
Posted yesterday at 6:14 p.m.
The objective of this decree is “to make sexual harassment a crime according to the code of military justice and to strengthen the response of the army to domestic violence and the unjustifiable diffusion or distribution of intimate images”, tweeted the American president.
This decree provided for in the 2022 budget of the Pentagon makes effective the law “I am Vanessa Guillen” named after a 20-year-old soldier murdered in 2020 on a large American military base after being the victim of sexual harassment.
The young soldier had told her family that she did not trust her superiors to follow up on a complaint of sexual harassment, and her relatives had publicly doubted the army’s determination to investigate her disappearance, until until his dismembered body was finally discovered. A dozen officers had been dismissed a few months later.
The law provides that sexual assaults, domestic violence and assaults on minors will be tried before a court martial and the decision to prosecute the perpetrators will be entrusted to specialized prosecutors – who have yet to be named – and no longer to the chain of command.
The US military had so far resisted, citing the need to maintain disciplined control within the ranks. But the number of sexual assaults not weakening, the American Department of Defense Lloyd Austin had appointed an independent commission to submit suggestions to it so that the perpetrators of sexual violence in the army be prosecuted more effectively.
The commission had concluded that taking away from the military hierarchy the decision whether or not to prosecute the perpetrators of sexual violence was the only solution.
Moreover, instead of incurring simple administrative sanctions as was the case so far, the perpetrators will be liable to prison terms.