Midlands Voices: Reforms critical to address sexual assault in military
The executive director of the Women’s Center for Advancement.calls on Congress to support Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act:
The Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA), sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would remove sexual assault reporting and prosecution from the chain of command and transfer it to a military prosecutor who is independent of the command.
While we commend both senators for their commitment to addressing this issue, the WCA strongly supports Sen. Gillibrand’s proposal. Our experience with veterans who were sexually assaulted shows that it is essential that reporting and prosecuting sexual assault in the military be removed from the chain of command under which the assault occurred in the first place.
