Sexual assault at US military academies rise 50%

There had been 747 instances of unwanted sexual contact in 2018, compared to 507 in 2016 and more than half of the incidents involved alcohol, the US Defense Department said Thursday in its annual report on sex violence.

The Pentagon survey said that 16.5 percent of female cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2018, compared to 10.2 percent in 2016.

the number of reported assaults increased from 29 to 32 at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland; and dipped slightly from 22 to 21 at the Air Force Academy, near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The use of alcohol, which has long been tied to sexual assaults, was included in the survey for the first time. And it found that nearly a third of male students and 15 percent of females said they drink heavily, meaning that on a typical day they would have five or more drinks.

In addition, 25 percent of the women and 28 percent of the men said that at least once in the past year they had drank alcoholic beverages so much that they couldn’t remember events from the previous night.

Military officials said they are frustrated by the results, particularly the pervasiveness of the sexual misconduct and the alcohol problems.

Sexual assault in the US military has long been a massive problem and is largely under-reported. The issue came under renewed scrutiny two years ago after a scandal involving Marines sharing nude photos of women online came to light.

The new report comes amid an ongoing wave of revelations about sexual harassment in the US, which has toppled a number of powerful men in the media, politics, business and the Catholic Church.