Sexual assaults in Canadian military have risen significantly: Data
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The Central Band of the Canadian Armed Forces at the National War Memorial on Remembrance Day in Ottawa on Nov 11, 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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OTTAWA – Sexual assaults in the Canadian military rose significantly in 2022 compared with 2018, Statistics Canada said on Dec 5 in the latest indication that sex crimes are a fast-growing problem
In 2022, around 1,960 members of the military, or 3.5 per cent of the total, reported they had been sexually assaulted by other people in the armed forces. This compares with 1.6 per cent in 2018.
Women made almost 75 per cent of the complaints.
The military has been under pressure for years over allegations of sexual misconduct by senior officers.
The Statscan report was based on a survey of armed forces members.
Around 64 per cent victims of sexual assault did not report the incident they experienced to anyone in authority, mainly because they did not feel as though it would make a difference.
“These results are deplorable… the continued prevalence of sexual misconduct in our workplace is incredibly disappointing,” General Wayne Eyre, chief of the defence staff, said in a statement.
“It is abundantly clear that we have a lot of difficult work ahead.”
In 2022, an official probe recommended that sex crimes in the military be investigated externally by civilian authorities, given what it called the unsatisfactory handling of offences by military courts over the preceding 20 years. REUTERS
