Sex Abuse Scandal at Lackland Air Force Base, Bishops Told Pedophiles Lie, Victims Must Be Heard

Why Won't Congress Investigate the Sex Abuse Scandal at Lackland Air Force Base?  Soumya Karlamangla The Nation July 17, 2012

Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, has become the center of the nation's biggest military sex abuse case in years. Over the past several months, a widespread sexual crime epidemic that began in 2009 has been uncovered at the camp, with twelve of 475 of the base’s instructors accused of either rape, sodomy and aggravated sexual assault, among other offenses, and thirty-one female trainees identified as victims.

Now dozens of lawmakers are calling for a Congressional hearing to investigate the incidents at Lackland. But there’s no sign that one will happen anytime soon.....

At a hearing last month, two female former trainees told a courtroom that they were pressured to have sex with two of their male instructors. The men called them over the intercom under false pretense and asked them to leave their dorm rooms, then led them to a supply closet where one of the men had sexual intercourse with one of the women, while the other woman performed oral sex on the other male instructor....

According to the Department of Defense, one in four women who join the military will be raped or sexually assaulted. And according to a report released last year by the department, 71 percent of women and 85 percent of men who experienced unwanted sexual contact chose not to report it. http://www.thenation.com/article/168918/why-wont-congress-investigate-sex-abuse-scandal-lackland-air-force-base


Call over the intercom led to Lackland sex tryst
By Sig Christenson Saturday, June 2, 2012
Two former Air Force trainees said Friday they were lured into a sexual tryst by a pair of trainers on their last night in San Antonio. Testifying at an evidentiary hearing, the women said Staff Sgt. Kwinton Estacio called over an intercom two days after they graduated from basic training last fall and asked them to leave the dorm and meet them. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/military/article/Call-over-the-intercom-led-to-Lackland-sex-tryst-3602350.php

2010 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members Overview Report on Sexual Assault http://www.sapr.mil/media/pdf/research/DMDC_2010_WGRA_Overview_Report_of_Sexual_Assault.pdf


Bishops Told Pedophiles Lie, Victims Must Be Heard NICOLE WINFIELD   02/7/12

ROME — Priests who rape and molest children lie when confronted with an accusation but victims usually tell the truth, psychologists told Catholic bishops at a symposium Tuesday, advising them to listen first to the victims....

Survivors of clerical abuse have long said that once they summoned the courage to denounce their abusers to church leaders, Catholic bishops often dismissed their accusations and instead accepted the word of their priests, whom bishops consider their brothers and sons in the priesthood.

That pattern led to decades in which bishops shuffled pedophiles from parish to parish, protecting the church's reputation at all costs, while victims were left to feel like they were to blame for the abuse.

Marie Collins, who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in her native Ireland, told the bishops that dynamic led to multiple hospitalizations later in life for anxiety and depression. She told her story of abuse and how the church's response to it – refusing to believe her, telling her it was her fault and taking the priest's word over hers – made the initial trauma even worse....

Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a psychologist who for a decade ran a U.S. treatment center for abusive priests, told the conference Tuesday that just like alcoholics or drug addicts, sexually abusive priests often lie when confronted with allegations. They manipulate, they con, they deny, he said.

"There are false allegations to be sure" and it's critical to restore a priest's good name when he has been cleared, Rossetti said in his prepared remarks. "But decades of experience tell us that the vast majority of allegations – over 95 percent – are founded."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/bishops-told-pedophiles-l_0_n_1259416.html