‘Military investigation tried to blame victim of harassment’ – 07/10/2023 – Politics

Judicial decisions and a survey show vices, machismo and distrust of victims in internal investigations of the Armed Forces into sexual harassment against female soldiers.

Judgments report cases of reprimand by the superior after public complaints about the embarrassment caused by possible harassment until investigations into the complainant’s behavior inside and outside the barracks.

That’s what happened to Marta (fictitious name), temporary sergeant in a battalion in the Northeast.

She denounced the alleged harassment of a lieutenant who, according to her account, even left marks on her abdomen. Due to lack of evidence, the accusation was not only archived, but also reversed. Marta was accused by the Military Public Ministry of slanderous denunciation against the officer.

When filing the complaint against her, Minister Artur Vidigal de Oliveira, of the STM (Superior Military Court), pointed out that the internal investigation began to investigate facts that discredited the complainant, questioning witnesses about her behavior in the barracks.

“The intention that is extracted after a careful reading of the questions prepared, both in the investigation and in the IPM [inquérito policial militar]such as ‘do you know if the graduate was related to military personnel from the Battalion’ or ‘if you know conduct that discredits the sergeant’, is an astonishing attempt to blame the victim for the harassment she suffered”, says the minister’s vote.

Marta told Sheet who only made the complaint after colleagues noticed his change in behavior. “I was scared because he was a career officer and I was a temporary military newcomer.”

To this day, her mother and close friends outside the barracks do not know what happened to her in the Army. But Marta says her experience served as a wake-up call for fellow soldiers.

“All [as amigas militares] they said, after seeing what I went through, that no one, if they went through the same thing, would do what I did. Because everyone turned their backs. They saw what I was going through. They saw how much I cried,” she says.

“The first question they always ask: ‘But why didn’t you speak up at the time? Why didn’t you go for a forensic examination since you were booked?’ It’s always the whys. But nobody wants to know what affected you at that moment, how you felt, if you felt good, if you felt bad. It’s always: ‘Ah, why didn’t you go?’ I didn’t, because of inexperience, because I didn’t know what was ahead.”

A sentence from Rio Grande do Sul also reports how a sergeant was reprimanded by her superior for getting excited at the approach of an Air Force non-commissioned officer. She vehemently rejected a request for a one-on-one meeting after being harassed three times before. The soldier was convicted.

The Army, Navy and Air Force stated in notes that they repudiated the practice of harassment and said they were investigating any reported criminal conduct.

Research carried out in 2020 by judges Mariana Aquino and Rodrigo Foureaux with women members of the security forces (also including PM, Municipal Guard and firefighters, among others) shows that 83% of those who declared having suffered sexual harassment at work did not report the case.

The main reasons were disbelief in the investigation (13.3%), fear of reprisals (12.7%) and fear of exposure (12.5%).

According to data from the survey, 163 military personnel from the Armed Forces declared having suffered harassment, a higher number than the number of investigations opened in the last seven years. Among them, 87% said that the harassment came from a superior.

The alleged harassments against Tamires (not her real name), a temporary sergeant at an Army warehouse, and Marta were investigated before 2020.

Aquino, who has been invited to give lectures at military units after the publication of the research, sees a change of scenery in the investigations.

“I have noticed this concern, because otherwise they would not want a judge to go to a military organization to talk about these crimes. The lecture is heavy. I bring several jurisprudence, I talk about the cases. speak because he knows that now he has a communication channel”, said the magistrate.

Prosecutor Najla Nassif Palma, from the Military Public Ministry, says that poorly conducted investigations are no longer common.

“They have been advised not to do this, but there have been investigations in which this care, this technique was not taken. There were cases in which we even had to change the person in charge”, she said.

Investigations, however, are no guarantee of convictions and punishments. The crime of harassment has requirements for it to be typified, such as the use of hierarchical superiority to obtain “sexual advantage”.

In some cases, magistrates acquit the accused by pointing out that the specific crime did not occur, although it should be analyzed from a disciplinary point of view.

It was, for example, the case of a lieutenant stationed in Jataí (GO), accused by four soldiers of repeatedly making sexual comments and embarrassing hugs. He was acquitted.

“None of the offended narrated conduct of the accused of promoting embarrassment in order to obtain ‘favors or sexual advantages’. sexual harassment, especially since none of the victims were professionally persecuted,” said judge Frederico Veras.