[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 16074]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          RAPE IN THE MILITARY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Speier) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, as I have risen nine times 
before, to speak about the unspeakable--rape in the military. Nineteen 
thousand soldiers each year, women and men, are raped in the military. 
And what is Congress doing about it? What is the Department of Defense 
doing about it? Not much.
  This is the 10th time I'm standing on this floor to share a story of 
a victim. Each of these soldiers proudly served their country, each was 
raped, and each was subjected to a system of justice that protects the 
perpetrator, not the victim. This is a problem we can fix; we just have 
to want to.
  I will continue to share these stories until something changes. 
Survivors can email me at [email protected] if they would 
like to speak up.
  Today, I want to share the story of Sergeant Myla Haider. Sergeant 
Haider served in the Army from 1994 to 1999, and again from November 
2000 to October 2005. When Sergeant Haider entered the Army, she 
planned on being a career servicemember; but in 2002, Sergeant Haider 
was raped while she was working with the CID, the Criminal 
Investigative Division. Ironically, it is the CID that is charged with 
investigating crimes, including rape and sexual assault, in the 
military.
  On this occasion, after socializing with a group of CID colleagues, 
the rapist, a senior agent in CID, isolated Sergeant Haider from the 
group and raped her. Sergeant Haider, like the overwhelming majority of 
servicemembers raped in the military, did not report the crime. She 
didn't report the rape because she had witnessed firsthand the negative 
attitude that the CID had towards rape victims and didn't believe she 
would be able to obtain justice if she had reported being raped.
  She did, however, confide in two friends, both other division agents 
at CID. They both promised her that they would not report the rape 
because they agreed with her assessment that reporting the rape would 
not lead to justice.
  Two years later, in November 2004, Sergeant Haider was contacted by a 
CID agent who had learned from one of Sergeant Haider's friends that 
she had been raped 2 years earlier by a senior CID agent. The CID agent 
informed her that the assailant was being investigated for raping 
several other women and indecently assaulting others. A serial rapist 
in the military.
  In 2005, Sergeant Haider testified at her rapist's court-martial. 
However, the agents that Sergeant Haider had confided in testified for 
the rapist. Sergeant Haider later learned from the agents that they had 
been threatened by command if they didn't testify on behalf of the 
accused. So, in order to preserve their careers at CID, they followed 
orders.
  In describing her decision to speak out, she said this: I knew my 
career was over because our soldiers cannot report a rape in the 
military and expect to have a successful military career.
  You see, only 13 percent of those that are raped in the military 
actually report it. And of those 13 percent, 90 percent of them are 
involuntarily honorably discharged from the military. So I have become 
painfully aware that at the rate the Department of Defense is working 
to address this issue, the epidemic of military sexual assault will 
never end.
  It is long past time for Congress to act. The real question is: When 
will we start protecting those that defend us?

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