New campaign aims to stop sexual assault - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

New campaign aims to stop sexual assault

The Pentagon on Friday launched a campaign to raise awareness of and prevent sexual assaults with a focus on what it calls “bystander intervention” — service members taking the initiative to step in when someone is about to be victimized.

The campaign, dubbed “Our Strength is for Defending,” is running throughout April in tandem with National Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Officials are employing posters, brochures and radio and TV announcements and focusing the campaign on 18- to-24-year-old men and women — the age range in which officials say most sexual assaults take place.

The campaign resembles a similar effort by the international advocacy group Men Can Stop Rape. That group’s campaign is focused on men; SAPRO worked with the group to adapt the program to the military and include women as a focal point.

“We all have a responsibility of intervening if we think a sexual assault is going to occur,” said Kaye Whitley, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, or SAPRO.

The campaign goal is twofold, Whitley said: preventing sexual assault, and raising awareness of the issue.

“Anytime you raise awareness, research tells us that more people will come forward” to report the crime, she said. “We start telling people [about] the services and programs that are available, should they be a victim of sexual assault. The more we talk about it, and the more people show their support, the more likely they are to come forward.

“We’re hoping that this will reduce the stigma,” she said. “We’re doing all we can to remove the barriers to reporting so people can come forward and get help.”

In its most recent report to Congress, the Pentagon said sexual assaults involving military victims or perpetrators are on the rise — more than 8 percent over fiscal 2007 — and increased more than three times as much in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least 2,908 reports of sexual assaults involving the military in some manner, ranging from wrongful sexual contact to rape, were reported in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2008. Most took place in the Army, which reported 1,584 sexual assaults in that 12-month period.

But those figures undoubtedly are low, Whitley says, noting that the crime is underreported in both the military and civilian worlds. Higher numbers magnify the extent of the problem, but Whitley says that more reports mean more victims are getting care.

“We just want the word out that we care, and want to take care of victims,” Whitley said.