A survey conducted by Statistics Canada indicates that 3.5% of members of the Regular Force of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) were victims of sexual assault in 2022. Women and minorities are more affected.
1960
After weighting, it is estimated that approximately 1,960 members of the Regular Force, or 3.5% of the approximately 56,000 military personnel, were sexually assaulted in their work environment or outside of this environment during events involving colleagues. in the 12 months preceding the survey. Including members of the Reserves, Statistics Canada obtained 23,000 responses during the survey held on 1er October 2022 to January 26, 2023.
Women and minorities
Women are significantly more affected than men; 7.5% of them (640 cases/8533) compared to 2.8% of men (1310 cases/46,785). These figures are up from previous polls. In the Regular Force, 34% of Regular Force women say they have experienced at least one sexualized or discriminatory behavior. Among minorities and “more vulnerable populations” to use a term from the FAC, 8.8% of members whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual report an assault; followed by young people aged 25 to 29 (6.9%) and people with a disability (5.9%).
Little reported
Only 21% of assault cases were reported, by the victim or a third party. “We conclude that the work environment is still afflicted by the problems identified by Ms. Deschamps and Ms. Arbour,” says Stéfanie von Hlatky, associate professor of political science at Queen’s University in Kingston, and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Security and the Armed Forces. She is referring here to a report on sexual misconduct in the CAF unveiled in 2015. Furthermore, nearly 66% of members who reported a sexual assault to a person in a position of authority suffered negative consequences afterwards.
“Worrying, deplorable, extremely disappointing”
The Deputy Minister of Defense and several high-ranking officers say they are “extremely concerned” by these results and note that women and “more vulnerable populations” are “disproportionately affected”. “Deplorable”, “incompatible with the values” of the FAC, an “extremely worrying prevalence” are also epithets used. A positive point is that more people are intervening or have taken action when witnessing “inappropriate behavior”.
Hard for recruitment
In an email exchange with The Press, Stéfanie von Hlatky believes that “the survey results demonstrate that members (of the CAF) are aware of training and policy changes to counter sexual misconduct”, but that this “does not bring the expected results”. She also notes that “members note improvements in the way sexual harassment and assault are taken seriously”, a good thing. But at the same time, she also notes that three-quarters of Regular Force women believe that the CAF has a problem with sexual misconduct. “So when we talk about recruiting more women into the forces, the selling point weakens,” she said.