better reporting? are female air men more willing to come forward when they have allegations of sexual assault? well, i think what senator mcsally said how she felt raped by the process is the biggest problem. we have had decades of promises from military leadership that they have zero tolerance and will take this seriously. the prosecution rates are dismal. the conviction rates are low. so that doesn t instill confidence. one of the biggest problems is retaliation. when men and women come forward it is often a career-ending event for them. there is legislation to try to address all of this and change the system and change what is mandated. one attempt at this is the military justice improvement act. this, of course, brought forth by senator kirsten gillibrand in the last congress. we were actually consulted by her and her team on this.
more open pace and i think it s important. i think it s great that senator mcsally came forward to talk about this. i do think that it helps to encourage other people to come forward, especially to see someone who is in a position of authority in a position of power to say this is something i ve dealt with, i m a survivor. i think it s a slumber for people. i think we need to think about the way we approach this in a legislative way, his will. in a cultural and legislatively. in fact, there are folks who have been working on this for a long time. senator kirsten gillibrand has been working on this a long time. the military justice improvement act is something that she has worked very hard on, and i encourage folks interested in this topic to look it up. but yes, i think we are in a really important moment and i think this is just another important story in a long list. speech of its interesting, because there are more summers coming on her. that leaving neverland documentary just c
live. the problem we have in the u.s. military is, even last year, there were 15,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact, rape and assault. and only 3% are ending in conviction. it is terrible that men and women who are serving in our military today do not have faith in the system in the military justice system to find their perpetrators, to hold them accountable and to get justice. what we are seeing, however, is just massive amounts of retaliation. in fact, even the last report from the military, 59% of survivors are being retaliated. even senator mcsally said she felt she was retraumatized because of how she was treated by those she disclosed that she had been assaulted. so we need accountability. so our bill, the military justice improvement act basically takes the decision-making out of the chain of command, gives it to trained military prosecutors, which will professionalize the system. it s the same thing that our allies have done over decades to
i believe if there would have been support and some type of outside of the chain of command. someone to report to, i would have more than likely done that. it just wasn t available. and it still isn t available. you supported the gillibrand amendment that died. you don t agree with the mccaskill one that passed. tell me why you think the current system is flawed. well, it s an antiquated system, it doesn t work, and we know it doesn t work, how do we know? because we have the numbers to show it hasn t been working. and so you don t keep doing the same thing over and over again. when you realize it doesn t work, you find something some other strategy that works. and i believe that the military justice improvement act, anything that s going to radi l radically change article 32, it s something that needs to be in place. i do not agree with senator mccaskill, and i m very triggered and upset behind her behavior here recently. she sat down with us survivors,
you were an army sergeant. do you feel like there was a bureaucracy in the military? i think there is an availability for that especially when we talk about lifting the combat exclusion ban for women that there now is an opportunity for all people to be seen equal twin military. we have to see that change. the possibility is there. how about the next frontier. where do you think it might go? right now with sexual assault in the military it s a big topic. this isn t a military issue alone because in colleges almost one in five women report being raped. so there s a lot of change to happen. with the military justice improvement act we re talking about something in and of itself is not radical. talking about taking the ability for commanders somebody in your chain of command take away the decision whether a case will be