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Steroids? How about rape?
Author: Raine    Date: 02/14/2008 13:56:05

It isn't as fun to talk to woman about thier sexual assaults as it is to talk to a Famous baseball player, but tough shit. It is high time Congress does something about this issue. Woman make up more than half of our population and deserve better treatment than they are getting
Limbo for Woman Reporting Assualts in Iraq
Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed in April 2004. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.

But not long after the ambush, Ms. Kineston said, she was sexually assaulted by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers. Later, she said she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in Iraq, she was fired.

“I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for KBR,” said Ms. Kineston, who won a modest arbitration award against KBR. “At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn’t do anything. I still have nightmares. They changed my life forever, and they got away with it.”

Ms. Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or even significant compensation.
[...]
The Criminal Investigation Command of the Army has reported that it investigated 124 cases of sexual assault in Iraq over the last three years. Those figures, provided to Senator Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who has taken the lead in the Senate on the issue, include cases involving both contractors and military personnel, but do not include cases involving contractors or soldiers investigated by other branches of the military.
[...]
Linda Lindsey, of Houston, who worked for KBR in Iraq from 2004 until early 2007, said that she often saw evidence of sexual harassment or discrimination, and that male supervisors often tried to force female employees to grant sexual favors in exchange for promotions or other benefits.
[..]
Pamela Jones, of Texas, a KBR logistics coordinator in Kuwait in 2003 and 2004, was sexually assaulted by a supervisor.
124 cases that do NOT include what is going on with private contractors. And NOTHING is being done. Arbitration is just not acceptable. People should be going to jail for these actions. JAIL. This is criminal and KBR is allowing it to be treated as a civil situation. Since when does a company get to decide what AMERICAN LAW IS?

You'll recall last week I spoke of KBR, Jamie Leigh Jones and a few other very brave women. I said that there are indeed more woman out there with stories like thiers. They are starting to speak out.
“Victims of crime perpetrated by employees of taxpayer-funded government contracts in Iraq deserve the same standard of treatment and protection governed by the same laws whether they are working in the U.S. or abroad,” she said.
Why is that so hard for KBR and the ENTIRE government to comprehend?

The next question is, what will the administration and congress do? While the president is spending all of his time trying to make sure Americans stay in fear, and the house and the senate are STILL fighting over the definition of Torture and what kind of spying should be allowed on american citizens, what are they doing about the fact that we have a company that punishes woman for speaking out about sexual assault?

Sexual assault, rape, sodomy --- these things are terroristic. MAke no mistake about it. It has been used for thousands of years to repress people. KBR uses it to keep woman quiet. I fear that nothing will be done until we have a woman turn up dead, if we have not already. More than 1000 contractors have been killed in Iraq. It just makes me wonder, how many could have been covered up, considering little or nothing is being done to investigate these woman's very serious claims.

TOO many stories have risen to the surface to assume these are just a few isolated incididents. Something must be done.

Instead of having 5 hour hearing on the Hill to talk to a washed up baseball player about steroids --- who already has millions of dollars in his bank account, perhaps congress could open up some serious hearings about how we are allowing for the terrorizing of our own citizens in the name of "The War on Terra™" in a very pathological, consistent, specific way...

It's disgusting.

:peace: and :heart:
Raine

 

249 comments (Latest Comment: 02/15/2008 03:36:54 by shelaghc)
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