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There has been a longstanding debate in the United States over the permissive environment for sexual abuse and harassment on military bases. This Tuesday the army suspended several soldiers. This is the case.
The United States Army announced the dismissal or suspension of 14 officers, two of them generals, for having created a “permissive environment for sexual abuse and harassment” at the Fort Hood (Texas) military base, where she was assassinated eight months ago Private Vanessa Guillén.
The disciplinary measures are the result of an investigation in reaction to the murder of Guillén, 20 years old and who disappeared on April 22, shortly after he told his family that he had been sexually harassed by one of his sergeants in that mass military installation.
His remains were found on June 30, two months after his disappearance, and his alleged murderer, Aaron David Robinson, a partner at the base, committed suicide when police came to question him.
See more: The terrible details of the murder of the soldier Vanessa Guillén in a US military base.
At a press conference, the Secretary of the Army, Ryand McCarthy, admitted that the investigation into the death of the young soldier identified “serious flaws in the mechanisms to deal with complaints of sexual harassment and abuse, and a climate that tolerates such abuses” .
“I am deeply disappointed because the commanders have not treated the soldiers with due respect,” added the official, who announced that as of May, new regulations will be applied in the Army for handling cases of sexual harassment and abuse, and for the expeditious location of the absent soldiers.
Among the sanctioned officers are General Scott Effland, who was in command of the Fort Hood base when Guillen disappeared, and General Jeffrey Broadwater, commander of the First Cavalry Division at the same military base.
McCarthy had ordered in mid-July the formation of an investigative commission headed by five civilians who for months conducted interviews and reviewed documentation at Fort Hood.
That commission published a report on Tuesday in which they affirmed that the sanctioned military created a “permissive environment for sexual abuse and harassment” in Fort Hood.
See more: Sexual abuse multiplies in US military academies.
This year at least 31 soldiers at that base have died in violent circumstances or accidents.
Guillén’s death and what his family has denounced as negligence in the military investigation drew public attention to the persistence of sexual harassment within the Armed Forces