The Women, Peace and Security Network Canada (WPSN) hosted a screening of The Invisible War on Nov. 28, a documentary which exposed high rates of sexual assault in the U.S. military, and how it’s ignored and covered up by military officials.
The screening on the University of Ottawa campus was followed by a panel discussion. Panellists included journalist Noémi Mercier and Ottawa feminist activist Julie Lalonde, who took questions from the audience. Caitlin Maxwell, a social justice lawyer in Toronto, moderated the discussion.
Lalonde and Mercier made the connection between ignored gender-based violence in the U.S. military to elsewhere, such as in the country itself, the Canadian military, on Canadian campuses, and in faith institutions.
The Invisible War estimates, based on reports from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, that 30 per cent of women who enlist are sexually assaulted by the time they complete their service.
The film follows several women who were raped during service, reported the crimes, and have received no compensation, justice, or support from the military.
Mercier won an award for best journalistic work of the year in Quebec for her investigations into sexual violence in the Canadian military published in Maclean’s.
“You could probably make the exact same film and replace U.S. with Canada,” Mercier said.
Portions of the 2012 documentary feature personnel from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, maintaining they do a fine job of investigating sexual assault within the military which recognizes rape as an occupational hazard.
Mercier said that at the current rate, “Maclean’s is going to have to write an article every few years that says ‘Hey, check up on the military, you still haven’t done a damn thing.’”
She added, in Canada, the Department of Veterans Affairs is not required to put out regular reports on rates of sexual assault in the military unlike the U.S., so it can be more difficult to quantify.
At the time of the documentary, military protocol dictated that sexual assault reports go to the unit commander who decided if the report would be investigated. But for the women in the film, their commanders often blamed them for the attacks, devalued their claims, or charged the women themselves with adultery if their assailant was married. Sometimes their attacker was the commander himself.
One woman in the documentary, Kori Cioca, was raped by her supervisor and still suffers from serious nerve damage in her face from a broken jaw that she procured during the attack. Despite reports, X-ray evidence, and speaking to officials on a number of levels, the military refused to pay for her jaw surgery or investigate her case. Her attacker was still serving in the U.S. Coast Guard at the time the documentary was filmed.
The panel discussion and film screening was part of “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Canada,” a campaign involving many local and national organizations to educate, engage, and empower the public against gender-based violence.
Approximately 60 people attended the event, at least 50 of them women.
Lalonde said the film is effective because it shows a tight control group of military personnel, but the problem resonates in society itself.
“It’s indicative of a broader problem which is rape culture,” she said.
