National Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2016 -- Conintued

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I want to speak on my amendment but not call it up at this moment. It is amendment No. 1578. The purpose of the amendment is to create an unbiased military justice system. I believe the Senate needs to vote on this amendment.

Over the last few years, Congress has forced the military to make incremental changes to address the crisis of sexual assault. After two decades of complete failure and lip service to zero tolerance, the military now says, essentially: Trust us. We have got it this time.

They spin the data, hoping nobody will dig below the surface of their top lines, because when you do, you will find the assault rate is exactly where it was in 2010.

We see an average of 52 new cases every day. Three out of four servicemembers who are survivors still don't think it is worth the risk of coming forward to report these crimes committed against them. One in seven victims was actually assaulted by someone in their chain of command. In 60 percent of cases, the survivor says a unit leader or supervisor is responsible for sexual harassment or gender discrimination. So it is no surprise that one in three survivors believes reporting would hurt their career.

For those who do report, they are more likely than not to experience retaliation. Despite the much touted reform that made retaliation a crime, the DOD has made zero progress on improving the 62-percent retaliation rate we had in 2012. So in 2012, 62 percent of those who reported a crime against them were retaliated against for doing so. In 2014, again, 62 percent were retaliated against.

Human Rights Watch looked into these figures and into the stories, and they found the DOD could not provide a single example from the last year where disciplinary action was actually taken against someone for retaliation. A sexual assault survivor is 12 times more likely to suffer retaliation than see their offender get convicted of sexual assault.

In my close review of 107 cases from 2013 from our four largest military bases--one for each service--I found that nearly half of those who did move forward to report in an unrestricted report, half of them withdrew from their case during the first year.

So we can talk all we want about reporting, reporting, but if half of those who report withdraw during the year of their prosecution, it shows there is no faith in the system. Survivors do not have faith in the current system. Under any metric, the system remains plagued with distrust and does not provide fair and just process that survivors deserve.

Simply put, the military has not held up to the standard posed by General Dempsey 1 year ago when he said the Pentagon was on the clock.

I urge my colleagues to hold the military to this higher standard. Let us put these decisions into the hands of trained military prosecutors. Enough is enough with the spin, with the excuses, and with false promises. We have to do the right thing and we have to act.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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