Sexual crimes: Cancer that eats away at the Canadian army

This text is taken from our edition of May 15, 2014.

–1 - Lise's Self

To count the times she was raped, assaulted or harassed sexually by brothers in arms, Lise Gauthier is not enough of her 10 fingers.

This 51 -year -old Sherbrookoise spent half of her life in the Canadian forces.She enlisted herself at the age of 18, a young girl bitten of mechanics with brand new ideals, dreaming of getting her hands dirty in the engines of fighter planes.For more than 25 years, she wore the royal blue of aviation as a second skin, with the conviction of serving something bigger than her.And during all this time, she delivered a war in silence of which her body was the battlefield.

"These attacks, these thoughts are all the time there, 24 hours a day!There is no possible escape.I wouldn't want no one to go through what I have passed.Not even my worst enemy.Because you don't live anymore, you survive.You breathe, that's all you can do, "she said, rocking herself in the solarium of the house that she shares with her spouse, tears peeling at the corner of her eyes immediately wiped.She will confide for long hours, each word, each of her outbursts, each crack in her voice betraying the feeling of injustice that eats away at her.

The first time, Lise had barely a year of service under the beret.The bus driver who raped her in a room at the Saint-Hubert base, in October 1982, grabbed her so hard by the throat to immobilize him under him that he left fingerprints of red fingerIn his neck.She has never forgotten this sinister order blown in her ear: "If you talk to someone, you are not better than dead.»»

From the second attack, the following year, he only has snatches.A party at the base of Trenton, Ontario.A shady dizzy, a stranger who insists on renewing it, the fight in her van to undress her.Then the black hole.His alarm clock in the middle of the night on the rear bench.Three months later, a start of bed and an abortion.

One evening, in the mid -1990s, a man locked him in the toilet of a bar, on the basis of Bagotville, near Chicoutimi.He grabbed his head, plated him on his crotch and demanded a blowjob to let her go out.On another occasion, while she put bottles in the back-boutique of the same bar, she felt a hand on her mouth, another removing her pants and a man with a strangely familiar voice trying to sodomize her."No one will believe you.Who will believe that I wanted to jump a homosexual?I am married and I have four children.When she turned around, she has stupid a colleague whom she had been around for years.

And always this suffocating, icy, primal terror, which petrifies it.

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Hell took an even more insidious form in the 2000s in Bagotville.The explicit advances of superiors were then unleashed on her - and a perverse relentlessness when she refused them."It will cost you your career," promised her a chief whom she had just repelled, drunk and sticky, in a bar.A few weeks later, with suspicious precipitation, it was noted his referral to the forces by invoking his health problems.A pretext, believes Lise, to get rid of her.

When Lise Gauthier finally denounced on paper in June 2007, the entire violence suffered over three decades, there were 159 pages.Immediately written, immediately swept away.The commander who received his complaint chose not to follow up on it, as he explained to her in a letter which still boils her when she reads her aloud: "Considering the scope of your complaint," he writes, which aims for more than fifteen accused […] on such a long period and this, without anyone or a witness reporting what you are advancing […], I must admit that your approach seems to me everythingincredible fact.»»

Thus, one day in October 2007, after having hit all the doors to try to keep its place, the Corporal-Chief Gauthier made its uniform.And at the same time, a piece of itself."I was proud of what I was.For me, it represented serving the country, helping people around us.I should have left my head high, when I was trying to me.Now I have to go to the end.Until, somewhere, I believe me.Let me say: "Lise, it happened.Lise, sorry, what can we do to compensate for the harm we did? "An evil that led him to the psychiatric wing of a hospital a few years ago, taken with such powerful panic that his body was shaken by convulsions."Working was my life buoy.When they kicked me out, well ... I went drift, "she said, her revolt suddenly died in a net of voice.

–2–178 or 1,780 victims?

Every day, five people would be sexually assaulted in the Canadian military community.

According to figures obtained under the Access to Information Act, each year, since 2000, between 134 and 201 sexual assaults have been reported to the military police, for an average of 178 per year.However, specialists agree that hundreds of other cases have passed over in silence.If we consider that less in a 10 sexual assault is disclosed to the authorities, such as the statistical Canada esteem, there would be a total of 1,780 incidents per year in the forces.Five a day.

"It's huge," says Alain Gauthier, director general of operations of the Ombudsman of National Defense and the Canadian Forces.To the point that his office wishes to launch a systemic investigation into sexual violence in the army, he reveals."We see lots of indicators who tell us that things do not work.»»

Most of the time, the aggressor is a man and the victim a woman - but not always.There are freshly enlisted soldiers who abuse soldiers, high officers who violate subordinates, men who put themselves in several to attack another.Ten percent of complaints concern cadets.No level of the hierarchy escapes it: Major David Yurczyn has just been found guilty of sexual assault and demoted to the rank of captain.Last year, he was dismissed after the accusations.He was the commander of the Wainwright base, Alberta.

Among the hot spots are the garrisons where the military transit in large numbers for training or training, alive glued to each other in barracks.The base of Borden, in Ontario, teeming with young people who stay there to learn a profession, is the one that has recorded the greatest number of complaints in the last decade.Gagetown, New Brunswick, where soldiers from all over North America, and Kingston, Ontario, which shelters and a military college are exercised, are also in the Top 5. Valcartier, near Quebec, ranksfifth.

Several times in the past five years, women have woken up in the middle of the night by moved attackers who had entered their neighborhoods, reveal the judgments of the court martial that we have peeled.Incidents occurred during dinners at the mess.Aboard ships.Under a tent erected in a training field.It happened in the afternoon, aboard a vehicle parked in a gravel career, in the middle of an exercise.In the hotel.In the washing room of a barracks.It happened to women deployed in Afghanistan.

Behind each event, the thread of a life that starts and distinguishes itself, like the route of an earthquake.Not only because of the act itself, but also because of the military machine.

A machine which, although she says to do their maximum to protect hers, can still close their eyes, punish those who denounce rapists, eject them when they sink into the spiral of trauma.An enclosed environment of some 100,000 regular and reservists, where the solidarity between comrades in arms is more sacred than life itself, and the hierarchy, all-powerful.An organization forged for war, which brings the success of the mission above all.With a parallel justice system, which obeys its own rules.

Canada was ahead of its time when it became 25 years ago, one of the first countries to admit women in all army bodies, including close combat positions.However, there is still a climate of sexism in some ranks, even open hostility to women, which constitute around 15 % of the forces.Twelve years of conflict in Afghanistan, however, have demonstrated it: the army more than ever needs its warriors.

...

In the United States, sexual violence in the army is reaching epidemic proportions.According to a survey carried out by the Pentagon in 2012, no less than 26,000 soldiers underwent unwanted sexual contacts in the last year - or 6.1 % of women and 1.2 % of men -, a leap of 35 % since2010. Military schools are even more fertile land for these kinds of abuse: between 10 % and 15 % of female students and 1 % to 3 % of their male comrades were sexually assaulted during the yearSchool 2011-2012.

For several months, a battle is organized at the highest levels to eradicate this scourge.Defense secretary Chuck Hagel has promised to make it a priority.Congress committees have held full -bodied hearings on the inability of military command and justice to tackle it."This is the biggest questioning of the system since the Vietnam War," said Eugene Fidell, professor at Yale University and Sommise in matters of military law.On December 26, President Barack Obama signed a law imposing more than thirty reforms and directives in the Department of Defense in order to strengthen the ramparts against this inner enemy."I want them to hear from the mouth of their commander-in-chief that I will not let go of them," he promised the victims.

On this side of the border, on the other hand, not much.The Canadian forces do not carry out systematic monitoring of sexual violence - only three surveys have been conducted on this subject in 22 years.Our requests under the Access to Information Act have not revealed any particular interest either from the Minister of Defense: for five years, the only grades or emails in this regard that has been passed through hisBureau are "press lines" written by its staff.It’s flat calm.But maybe not for long.

–3 - the fear of reprisals

Alain Gauthier, managing director of the Forces Ombudsman, has too often heard the same story: a victim contacts the office to learn about his appeals, but ends up abandoning the steps, dreading that his complaint is turned against her. "The fear of reprisals is palpable," said the dashing colonel retired, who swapped the stripes and the infantry against a full marine impeccable and an office tower close to the Ottawa parliament. “It's still part of the culture of forces. Team spirit comes first, and if someone says they have a problem with someone in the group, often they will be identified as the black sheep, treated as an administrative problem. As long as we will not arrive with a culture and a command approach which say that it is unacceptable, which make complaints taken seriously and settled within reasonable deadlines, the system will not change. »»

The Ombudsman office therefore considers to take the big means.In the coming months, a team of two or three investigators could examine the mechanics of harassment complaints in general, and sexual violence in particular."There would be a revision of the A to Z process," says Alain Gauthier.Everything related to processing deadlines, monitoring, recording complaints.Reprisals, the role of the chain of command.We want to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.The first that should be aware of these figures is the Chief of the National Defense Staff.I want to know if he has a complete vision of the problem.And if it puts the resources in place to settle it.»»

The most recent study of the army on harassment in the workplace, of which we have obtained the preliminary version, attests to it: the screed of secrecy is heavy on the victims. According to this survey, carried out in 2012 with 2,245 regular staff members, 9 % of women and 0.3 % of men say they have suffered sexual harassment or unwanted sexual contacts in the past 12 months - which also includes well the obscene jokes that touching and rape. The trend has been down for twenty years. The fact remains that today, only 7 % of the people who are defined by official ways. The others collect, citing among the main reasons for their restraint: the fact that they do not see the usefulness of a denunciation or prefer to take care of the problem themselves; The fear that their situation at work will deteriorate or make them blame them; the fear of being labeled as a troublemaker; And the certainty that their approach would be useless.

Stéphanie Raymond does not need statistics to know that these apprehensions can materialize.The ex-capral of the Quebec region, which exercised the profession of clerk in the reserve, tumbled in the status of model employee, mature for a promotion, to that of administrative burden in less than two years.And she thinks she knows why.

In the meantime, she filed a complaint for sexual assault against a superior of her regiment.

–4–

Stéphanie Raymond does not miss any details on this summer evening, seated in the kitchen of her apartment, in Saint-Romuald.The 30 -year -old woman speaks out of a detour, the raw words, the rebellious tone, but the modest emotion: in her placid face, only her eyes bright a wet veil.

On December 15, 2011, after a Christmas dinner watered with the staff of his regiment, the corporal found herself alone at the Military Manège of Lévis with a adjutant.On the mess, upstairs, he sat it in force in an armchair and tackled his lips against his.This was followed by an climbing of increasingly invasive gestures - the bite of a breast, fingers in his vagina, a mouth on his sex, a penis in front of her face, an attempted penetration - while she was tryingto get out of it and asked him to stop, she says." I am not interested." " You hurt me."No, please, I don't agree to continue.»»

In the eyes of the two military police investigators to whom she confided in Valcartier a few weeks later, these refusals were not convincing enough.It would have been necessary to say "no" more firmly.Because the adjutant had drunk.Because she had followed her upstairs.Because she is "not a pichou" - Stéphanie is also an amateur model.It was in these terms that, two days after having collected his deposition, the police explained to him that his complaint was rejected, she said.Case closed.Warrant Officer was not even questioned.

From that moment, the tumble was brutal.The feeling of being abandoned by his bosses and judged by his peers, like a stab in the side.To make her cry with rage.To make him want to apply a fatal steering wheel by driving on the Pierre-Laporte bridge."It's like I have no value.It was a second assault, even worse than the first.For months, Stéphanie will try by all means to make her version of the facts heard.She will leave her career there.

...

This reality seems perfectly foreign to the two high -placed officers who receive us in a windowless conference room from the military police headquarters, a boring building typical of government buildings in the Ottawa region.Lieutenants-Colonels Gilles Santerre and Brian Frei accumulate two half-century of service.And they are convinced of one thing: "There is no barrier for anyone who wants to file a complaint.»»

Military police have authority in all establishments of the Canadian forces and on all members of the regular force, wherever they are on the planet.When an assault involving soldiers is reported on the defense territory, it is still her who is investigating.And if accusations are brought, it is necessarily a military court that hears the cause.However, if the incident occurs outside this perimeter-in a city center bar, for example-the civilian police also have jurisdiction and they can decide to appropriate the file.The case was then tried before an ordinary criminal court.

"We take all the allegations of sexual assault seriously.We are doing a searched investigation each time, "said Brian Frei, a big boss of the National Investigation Service, the specialized body of criminal investigators (the equivalent of the Division of Major Crimes of the Sûreté du Québec).His colleague Gilles Santerre, assistant commander of the military police group, hastens to add: "A commander on a basis cannot come and tell us to refrain from carrying out such an investigation or to question such a person.We are independent.»»

If he does not put his nose in police investigations, a commander can still, in some cases of sexual assault, mix accusations.It all depends on the severity of the gesture.In the heaviest cases, whose criminal nature is in doubt, the national investigation service is called in reinforcement and it is he who carries the accusations.But if the allegation is not considered serious enough to deserve such an intervention-"a touching over clothes, for example", specifies Brian Frei-, then it is the boss of the suspect who decides.On the basis of the facts compiled by the police, the commander of the unit decrees if his subordinate will have to answer for his acts before the military justice or if simple administrative sanctions are sufficient.

No matter the case, the staff is never far away. There is no way for a victim to file a complaint to the military police without his own superiors - and those of the accused - being informed. The "chain of command", for a soldier, is essential and omniscient: it depends on it for all aspects of its professional destiny, for its changes as for its medical appointments-and it can go to prison if disobeyed him. According to Gilles Santerre, this proximity is a blessing, not an impediment. "It is an environment that is more conducive to complaining. The chain of command takes care of its world. It can offer services to victims, make sure they work in a security environment, especially if the incident has happened with colleagues. According to my experience, she is of great support, "insists Lieutenant-Colonel. It is even surprised that we can suggest the opposite.

The catch is that this long arm hierarchy is not always impartial.Other times, it is the peers who are giving up against the complainant.

There are clues everywhere. Two researchers in social psychology, Ritu Gill and Angela Febbaro, employees of the National Defense Research and Development Agency, ring the alarm in a study published last year in the Savant Violence Against Women journal. The authors interviewed 26 soldiers affiliated with combat units from the Petawawa base in Ontario, some of which had already been harassed or sexually assaulted. Conclusion: women expose themselves to mockery, ostracism or, worse, threats if they file a complaint, and they do not always have the support of their chain of command. "The central point should not be the number or percentage of women who are victims, but their degree of confidence in the formal complaint procedure, write the researchers. […] The results of this study suggest that the mechanism must be reassessed and revised in order to create an environment that allows women to file a complaint without negative repercussions. »»

...

While Corporal Stéphanie Raymond told the dark Christmas dinner to investigators, in a interrogation room in the basement of a Valcartier building, its complaint made its way in the hierarchy, climbing its immediate supervisor to the commanderof his regiment.Almost immediately, the young woman felt the noose tightening on her.Very quickly, she began to record her conversations using a phone hidden in her pocket.

About twenty times in the following months, she said, superiors summoned him to inform him of the dissatisfaction that his complaint aroused in high places, to excuse the conduct of his alleged aggressor or to advise him to ceasehis steps.The three recordings we had access to it."You will learn in it," said a boss in the tone of the concern.A chance that he was not until the end.It could have been worse, let's put that he had penetrated you."What I want to avoid, pleaded for another is that you penalize yourself and get out of the medium -term foot in the long term.Party like you left there, I'm afraid that that's what will happen."We will have to put this file behind you one day," warned a third.Otherwise, it will affect your career.»»

Barely his complaint was filed than his alleged attacker was entrusted with a position ... in the same office as her. When Stéphanie asks that they are separated, it is she that we will send to another unit. Then, while she multiplied the appeals to all possible authorities, we started to make her all kinds of miseries, small and large: a refused leave; her candidacy dismissed for positions when she was the only postulating or most qualified; Refrimands for an sassy Facebook status, for a word from a superior to a superior. "Reprisals do not stop," she says. I am blocked everywhere. I cannot have my promotion, I am no longer able to get started, I am monitored. Wherever I go, people are aware of my case. I feel the level of hate really very high on the part of my superiors. Finally, in the fall of 2013, this slap: a notice of "liberation" saying it "unfit to continue its service" because it "imposes an excessive burden on the administration of the Canadian forces". The terrible motif "5 F)", synonymous, in military jargon, of dishonor.

And yet ... After two years of Kafkai approaches, 300 emails, fifteen letters, complaints and grievances, and the compilation of a dossier thicker than a dictionary, Stéphanie saw the military machine fold. She had already returned her outfits and her boots when she learned the news. An accusation of sexual assault was finally brought against adjutant André Gagnon, based on new evidence. The trial is expected to open in the coming months. A development that has the bitter taste of defeat, she thought during our third meeting at her kitchen table one evening in November. "It added a little light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes I still wonder why I did not close my mouth," said the one who studies in administration at university. I lost everything: my salary, my job ... I have no money, I go into debt. I was thinking of a career, I saw myself an officer. Who pays the price? It's me. »»

...

La hiérarchie militaire, par son silence, a peut-être permis à un prédateur sexuel de sévir pendant des années avant d’être traîné en justice. Entre 2003 et 2009, à Thunder Bay, Sarnia et London, en Ontario, l’ex-maître de 2^e classe James Wilks a profité de sa position de technicien médical pour reluquer ou agresser sexuellement au moins une vingtaine de femmes. C’est lui qui faisait passer aux recrues leur examen médical d’enrôlement et aux militaires actives leur examen annuel. Sous prétexte d’évaluer leur condition physique, il les a fait se dévêtir devant lui, découvrir leur poitrine, s’étirer ou se pencher dans des postures suggestives en petite tenue. Il a frotté contre elles son pénis en érection sous son pantalon. Il a palpé leurs seins nus.

"Alarm bells had been fired about this guy a long time ago, but the necessary measures were not taken to protect people," said Phillip Millar, lawyer in London. This former infantry officer brought civil proceedings against Wilks and national defense on behalf of seven victims. "It evokes the scandal of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. If you know that someone has this kind of problem, you don't leave it in a position of trust and authority. In the spring of 2007, the commander of the Wilks detachment had raised concerns about him, and the clinical supervisor had met the latter to remind him of the procedure to follow, insisting that the patients did not have to Strong and breast examination was never indicated in these circumstances. His bosses had it in their crosshairs, therefore. And they kept him in post.

Military police wanted to know why his superiors closed their eyes on such suspicions.An investigation was triggered to "determine if appropriate measures were taken by Mr. Wilks' chain of command when the staff was informed of his driving," said a spokesperson.Investigators determined that his former bosses did not deserve to be formally accused for their responsibility in this case.However, the file was entrusted to the chief of military personnel (a sort of human resources management) so that he imposes administrative sanctions on those who missed their duties.

To stop him, this man, it was not until December 2009 and the improbable courage of a shy 17 -year -old teenager Robbie Williams. That day, the young Aboriginal of Sarnia came out of the examination room and alerted the police, paving the way for the long list of complainants who have imitated her since. "I immediately felt that something was wrong. I wanted to follow all the right procedures, so I did what he asked me. This story threw me on the ground. For a long time, I was unable to look in the mirror. He made me feel like a less than nothing, "she said, all in laconic answers and embarrassed smiles, her eyes full of tears. We chat at a picnic table, by a beautiful day in September 2013, on the ground of a government building in Gatineau. Inside, James Wilks - Big Rougeaud and Trapu guy, badly served by an overly short complete - is undergoing his second trial in court martial. The young woman was 10 hours away with seven family members to attend.

Already convicted in 2011 for his indecent gestures for Robbie and two other complainants, this time he will be found guilty of 25 counts - 10 of sexual assault and 15 breach of trust - affecting fifteenwomen.And a third trial is not excluded, according to the prosecutor of the prosecution, Major Dylan Kerr, if other victims manifest themselves.

As long as they have faith in the system.

–5– civil justice, military justice

It is because of this kind of fiasco that the retired colonel Michel Drapeau, founder of one of the few firms specializing in military law in the country, claims a large household in the justice system.“The problem of sexual assault highlights structural vices.Canada is in the Middle Ages.It’s as if the soldiers were second -class citizens, "said the lawyer, co -author of two 2,000 -page bibles on military law.While Canada clings to the status quo, a revolution takes place in the rest of the world.Many nations have undertaken to demilitize the judiciary who governs their soldiers.It would be high time, says Michel Drapeau, to follow suit.

This imposing fellow with white hair undertook his career as a lawyer at the end of the fifties, after 34 years of service in the forces.In 11 years of practice, he estimated to have received between 40 and 50 soldiers victims of sexual assault - often young women, several still students in military college.In his congested cabinet where we spot a few medals, stuck in the half-sous-ground of a building in downtown Ottawa, he talks about them with the concerned with a grandfather, markingbreaks loaded with intensity.

The lawyer says he has all the misery of the world to convince his customers to denounce their attacker.“Young people are afraid.Let's say it was a corporal, a captain or a colonel that attacked you.You will make a complaint to the military police and it is a corporal that receives you.From the start, you will not have confidence in independence.Because of the grades, the uniform, "said the one who appeared as an expert in front of a special committee of the American Congress on Military Justice in matters of sexual assault, in Washing-Ton, last September.

On a block of yellow paper, he traces boxes, arrows, color lines to illustrate the judicial labyrinth of the forces.In this universe, representatives of the law are at the same time soldiers.Supposed to act independently, they are nevertheless subject to the military hierarchy and must loyalty to the institution by virtue of the grade of grade sewn on their clothes.According to Michel Drapeau, this is enough to create if only the perception that the chain of command can influence the course of justice.In his opinion, it is necessary to dissociate from this hierarchy the judicial system, in order to make it more impartial, independent and trustworthy in the eyes of the victims.

Major reforms were carried out in the late 1990s, in the wake of the Somalia scandal - Canadian soldiers had tortured a Somali teenager in 1993 and their superiors in death.These changes have strengthened the integrity of the military police and justice, in addition to limiting the powers of the chain of command.But for a growing number of experts, it is not enough.Divorce, they think, should be total.

That the army is content to rage against sprains in the discipline, argue the reformers - these acts which are crimes only in the military context (such as insubordination, absence without permission or intoxication) and that'Organization considers it necessary to punish to have permanent troops ready to fight.But as soon as it is a question of investigating crimes committed in Canada in peacetime or judging them, that the civil authorities are left to take care of it.Uniforms and grades have "no business," says Michel Drapeau.“Military justice is like hockey punishment: we send the player to moderate on the bench before letting him return to the game. It is used to rehabilitate the guy so that he can join his unit afterwards and continue tocombat.But do we want that for people who violate their companions with weapons?»»

...

High officials of the justice of the forces do not give up. In their eyes, this parallel regime responds to imperatives whose civil courts cannot take into account, explains Lieutenant-Colonel André Dufour, legal director of operations in the cabinet of the general judge, met in his downtown office 'Ottawa. "If soldiers are involved in a sexual assault, it should be resolved within the military system," said this great courteous and conscientious man by sending us back to the rings filler filled with documentation which he has prepared for us. "Because it undermines operational efficiency. When they are deployed, people have to work as a team, otherwise we don't win the war. Before a civil court, these interests may not be taken into account. I think we have an effective, fair system that gives results. "Adjusting his glasses without mount on the tip of his nose, the lawyer brandishes three voluminous reports on the justice of the forces, produced by independent judges in 1997, 2003 and 2011:" In these reports, there is no remark On sexual assault or anything that suggests that the system is faulty. »»

For their part, the military police argue that they alone, being soldiers, are qualified to fulfill this role in a war zone.And to be good police officers in operations theater, they must be able to exercise their functions at all times and anywhere, in order to maintain their skills.

Many countries do things differently.

...

Almost everywhere on the planet, grades and uniforms "have no more business".In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, for example, key mesh of military justice have been put back in the hands of civilians.In martial courses, they are civilian magistrates who sit, not high officers of the army.The general judgment (big boss of military justice) and the director of prosecution are also civilians.In the United Kingdom, it is a police force entirely made up of civilians who investigate serious offenses in defense establishments;Military police only deal with crimes of a purely disciplinary nature.

Other nations have gone even further: France (from 1981!), Austria, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, in particular, have completely eliminated military courts in peacetimeon their territory.

Meanwhile, Canada is evolving in the opposite direction.The field of action of its martial courses, far from shrinking, has extended over the years.It was only since 1998 that they have the authority to judge the affairs of sexual assault: before, civil courts had exclusivity (this is always the case for murders, homicidesinvoluntary and children's kidnappings perpetrated on Canadian soil).Then, in 2008, the big boss of the forces was granted an extraordinary power, although he has never used it before: the defense staff head can temporarily exempt a soldier from the obligationTo register in the national register of sex offenders, the time he fulfills his "operational obligations" ... that is to say for the good of a mission.

At this stage, among the great "allied" powers, only the Americans have more archaic military justice than the Canadian.

–6 - Martial courtyard

The corporal is fastly unleashed in the neon -lit classroom, which has been disguised in court for the week, canvases with windows masking the September sun.Embedded in her green forest service outfit, the bun tight under the beret, she advances like a block, swinging her arms excessively along her body.Left, right, left, right.As on a parade ground.Like someone who has shown himself with all his might to face an ordeal - and who barely breathes.

The young woman stops clear before the judge in a boosting of an ankle and awaits her instructions at the guard, stiff like a rifle, an iron hand to the temple.Military salvation is essential before the highest ranking than oneself, and the judge is a lieutenant-colonel, 11 steps above it in the hierarchy.

We feel him with a disturbed silence which fell in the room: the next minutes will be decisive for the outcome of the trial.The corporal is preparing to testify against its attacker.

We are in the heart of the Petawawa garrison, 165 km north of Ottawa, Ontario.This base may be the largest in the country, it does not have a courtroom reserved for martial courses.So we hold them where we can;This time, we opted for class 8 of the L-106 building, the small and very commonplace learning and career center, where some lessons take place.We installed a small platform platform, mounted there the judge's desk and the two official flags, stretched a large burgundy curtain in front of a wall - to change.

However, the procedure will lose anything in decorum.

All here bear the uniform (with the exception of the judge, in a magistrate dress): the two prosecutors, the defense lawyer, the clerk-sttenographer, the witnesses.The accused too: the soldier Jean-Christophe Déry, a 23-year-old young man with the blonde puff, who, by his capacity as a little uncomfortable boy, bored in his uniform, gives the impression of not understandingWhat he does there.

The vigil had been festive on this fall 2011. After a month and a half exhausting in the "Clos", on the basis of Wainwright, Alberta, we organized a barbecue to celebrate the end of the exercise.The festivities had extended under the tent shared by several soldiers, and Déry had spent his time making insistent advances to his comrade (a non-publication of non-publication prohibits revealing his name).Once the lights are off and each returned to her quarters, she fell asleep like a log on her camp bed."I woke up because I had Déry's hand in my underpants that touched my clitoris," she said from a line to the prosecutor that questions her."Her face was right there, six inch from mine," she exclaims, mimicking with an open hand, the soldier's face arose from darkness.

This afternoon, in class 8, the corporal is again trapped: seated at their respective tables, she and the accused find themselves so close to each other that they would only have to stretch The arm to touch. Each second seems to tear her off a superhuman effort to control herself while she testifies in the sights of the one she accuses. She engulfs a glass of water after another, her throat at times so tied that her words are strangling. She blows noisily, blushes, hugs on her chair, takes the lead with two hands, her disarray evoking that of a hunted beast. When the defense lawyer raises contradictions in his memory of events, then his insolence and disgust wake up. "I was in total shock. I woke up, I could move anymore, I could do nothing. I felt like I never felt. Make no, I don't remember little details like where his head was! But I remember where his hand was and that's what's counting, right? She replies by repressing crying.

During the rest of the week, five other people will come at the helm to deliver their version of the story."It is always a test to come and testify in a system as structured as ours," concedes in an interview one of the two prosecutors, Major Annie-Claude Samson."The military aspect adds a difficulty, or an apprehension.Most witnesses are members of the rank.Here they are surrounded by officers.Maybe they don't often talk to a major, and there is a major who asks them questions.If the trial took place before jurors, there would be a few more high officers in the room, since a martial court jury (called "committee") is still made up of five officers.

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Witnesses will pronounce on the possibility that an intruder slips into a tent in the middle of the night without being spotted.Because nobody, apart from the complainant, saw neither heard the soldier Déry at this place and at this hour.It will be up to the judge to decide.

...

If we trust the tendency of the last decade, the probability that the soldier Déry be condemned is one in three.In the civil system, it would be one in two.

This is revealed by the figures obtained from the general judge-lawyer.From 1999-2000 to 2011-2012, 108 accusations of sexual assault or exploitation were deposited at the court martial.Of this number, 34 % led to guilt verdicts;34 %, to acquittals;And in 29 % of cases, the charges were suspended or withdrawn.In civil society, the rate of convictions is higher: according to Statistics Canada, the accused is found guilty in half of the causes of sexual offenses heard before adult courts.

Forces justice officers have one more card to decide on trials of this kind.And according to criticism, this card allows too many sexual attackers to get away with a tap on the fingers.

When an accusation of sexual assault is striped in court martial, this often means that the accused, in exchange, pleaded guilty to a more benign chief, like "conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline".It is one of the reasons most often invoked in the military courts: an offender offense, which can be received if you lie to a superior, for example, or if you wear medals without being entitled to it, or evenIf you are unfit for service after drinking.

In the Canadian forces, we can therefore escape a criminal accusation by admitting ... having disturbed order and discipline or, variant, having had dishonorable conduct.A crime against the person is thus transmuted into a disciplinary problem for the army.And the accused gets away with a fine or a reprimand, without a criminal record.

This is how the soldier D.E. Reade came out, in 2011, he who had grabbed the breasts of a soldier under his bra, twice despite his refusals, in the laundry room of a barracks,in Gagetown.The same goes for Lieutenant D.P. Mahaney, tried in 2010 for sexual exploitation: he had died at a 17-year-old younger person whose supervision he supervised in a summer camp in Nova Scotia.Same for Sergeant D.G. Macdonald.This soldier of experience had introduced himself to his closest assistant during his sleep, on the basis of Shilo, Manitoba, and he had slipped his hand to his genitals.He admitted all the facts before the judge in 2010. But since he confessed guilty to being in a dishonest manner, he saw the chief of sexual assault that weighed against him elated.

And the list is getting longer.In 2009, adjutant-master J.C.C.Carrier admitted having touched the intimate organs of two of his soldiers - men - in full mess, during a supper at the base of Moncton: he dodged two chiefs of sexual assault by pleading guilty of having mistreated subordinates, a non -criminal fault.

This situation enrages the lawyer and colonel retired Michel Drapeau.For him, it is the demonstration that in matters of justice, in Canada, there are two weights, two measures.“A sexual assault is above all a serious crime against the person.It is therefore the whole society - not only the military barracks - which must take note to punish.Whether you are attacked by a soldier or a civilian, it is the same assault and it is the same indignity.And the person should go through the twist like someone who is accused in civilian.»»

In the civil system too, the accused can improve his fate by admitting his guilt for a lesser chief ... with the difference that this chief will remain in the criminal domain and will still lead to a criminal record."We could not, for example, be accused of criminal flight offense and plead guilty to a violation of the road safety code," explains the lawyer Véronique Robert.It would mix two forms of law in a single procedure.Military justice, apparently, does not make these distinctions.

Soldier Jean-Christophe Déry did not use any of these stratagems, having rather chosen to deny having abused his colleague.But on September 20, 2013, in the Petawawa classroom, the judge said he was convinced by the testimony of the complainant.He declared the soldier guilty of sexual assault, sentenced him to 30 days of imprisonment - to serve in the sole center of detention of the forces, in Edmonton - and ordered him to register as a sex delinquent.This will not prevent him from continuing to serve in the army.The young man appealed the judgment.

–7– Famous support

Morning, noon and evening, a vehicle procession fills the artery that crosses the small town of Petawawa and leads to the base.This bled of 16,000 inhabitants vibrates entirely to the military rate.Almost everyone here is a garrison hump or lives with someone who works there.Everywhere - in shops, at the windows of the houses - the yellow ribbon is displayed or some other symbol of support for the troops.

In recent years, the base of Petawawa has been competing in that of Borden first as for the number of complaints for sexual assault.For the victims in search of a discreet place where to heal their wounds, there are not many options in this community where rumors spread as quickly as in secondary school.

Some will seek comfort about fifteen kilometers, at the center of the women of Pembroke, the neighboring locality.We easily pass straight in front of the small bungalow, funny behind the boulevard, between a motel, an old barn and car dealerships.Nothing can distinguish it, not even a street number, just a purple door and a modest plate.Here, the victims are less likely to stand out."Most choose not to report their assault," said Joanne Brooks, director of Women’s Sexual Assault Center of Renfrew County.They saw their weapons sisters pay the price.The army is a sect, in a way.There is an unwritten code of conduct to be respected.»»

Languages must be untied in the small cozy room painted in purple, faced with this reassuring woman with eyes full of goodness.It was between these walls that she organized, in 2010, a discussion between six victims of the military community: the comments she compiled betray their deep isolation in an environment however devoid of intimacy."Because of frequent changes and moves, you do not create links outside the base," they said.The army is all your life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone is aware of your business, there is no privacy, no anonymity.If you use support services, you get you looking differently, as if you were deficient.»»

In Valcartier too, the victims seem reluctant to consult the resources on site.Few are those that we see climbing "the staircase of shame", as we still nickname, between soldiers, the steps leading on the first floor of the health center, where psychological care are provided."It is very possible that these people prefer to be followed externally, to get out of the middle," supposes Major Mathieu Bilodeau, psychiatrist and clinical director of mental health of the center.

There was previously an outcome for those who wanted to obtain specialized help without showing themselves: an anonymous 1,800 assistance line for soldiers victims of sexual assault and harassment.There were between 150 and 190 calls per year, according to a Defense Review Service report, reviewing programs to combat harassment.This option disappeared: the forces closed the service in 2006.

–8–trahie by its clan

Of all calamities, rape is among those that cause the most serious psychological wounds.Even more than war.

No other act sows his venom so deeply inside a being."It is almost universally traumatic: the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder is estimated at 85 % a month after sexual assault.Because there is a very intimate border transgression.With torture and sequestration, it is one of the very important trauma, "says psychologist Pascale Brillon, one of the biggest specialists in post-traumatic stress in Quebec, met in her office decorated with an orchid in flowers, toThe anxiety disorders clinic at the Montreal Sacred Heart Hospital.

To suffer from a post-traumatic stress disorder (TSPT) is to be a prisoner of an infernal mental loop. It is to relive horror, in nightmares, flashbacks and thoughts that arise at any time, uncontrollable. It is to make contortions to avoid the slightest reminder of the assault, which can go so far as to cut yourself off from the world or to forget big ends of the event. It is to live on alert, with fear as a companion - a fear that makes you lose reason, a fear like an alarm signal that does not want to go out. "It is extremely common that everything collapses," continues Pascale Brillon, who deals with the military victims of rape. "Two reactions are often linked to the disorder: a major depression and a tendency to use alcohol to calm down. So it can cause serious disciplinary problems. And the TSPT is anxious disorder that is most strongly associated with suicide. "There are victims who can no longer keep a job, as their psychological handicap is heavy. In some, the wound will remain gaping, intact, decades after the facts.

According to scientific research carried out in the United States, sexual violence, for a soldier, can be even more traumatic than the atrocities of the fight.Two researchers affiliated at Yale University, in Connecticut, conducted a study on more than 300 former fighters, published in 1998 in the journal Psychiatric Services.The authors wanted to measure the influence of different trauma on the appearance of the TSPT.They calculated that "sexual stress" during service contributed almost four times more than military stress itself (being under the fire of the enemy, working more than 24 hours in a row or witness human losses,for example).

Other researchers compared the repercussions of sexual violence depending on whether they were suffered within the army or outside.As part of a study published in 2004 in Psychosomatic Medicine, an American team interviewed 270 patients from a clinic for veterans in Texas.Women attacked during their service had a higher rate of post-traumatic stress (42 %) than those attacked in civil life (28 %).

The military universe therefore seems to worsen the consequences of this intimate disaster.For a number of survivors, what shatters is the conviction to belong to a tribe for which they would have given their lives - and which is supposed to give them the same."It looks like what we see in incest victims," says Pascale Brillon.

The specialist knows their world well, since she has given training for training professionals for 15 years for power as well as the military themselves."The clan is very important," explains the clinician with her cozy voice.We can count as much on our colleague as on ourselves, we put our lives in our hands.So, if I get violated by someone who is supposed to defend me, that means that I am not part of the gang.It's like a double betrayal.If I am out of the gang, I who had so much difficulty integrating myself because I am a woman, then I am even more excluded.Sometimes the girls will say to me: "If I say that I have symptoms, it will be proof that I was not up to par."»»

These heartbreaks were manifest in the women we met.Hard -cooking, mostly;They ate this life, with this life, its ideals of service, sacrifice and surpassing oneself, and they withdrew a pride in making them shine their eyes.Until the rape screwed up this building."It is not just a job they lose, but their whole identity," said the psychiatrist Édouard Auger, who treats veterans at the trauma clinic related to operational stress in Quebec.He estimates that about 15 % of his patients have undergone sexual trauma during their career.

...

Anyone who admits poorly in a big risk in the forces: being assigned to office tasks while wearing the uniform, that does not exist for a soldier.All must be in good shape to be able to be dispatched to the war zone tomorrow morning.You are not deployable?You are no longer military, one is all.

This reality is glaring when the last Canadian soldiers have just left Afghanistan, after 12 years of a war which cost the lives of 158 of them and which caused injuries to more than 2,000 others.

For Canadian women, this mission was an opportunity for exceptional breakthroughs.They fought alongside men, they killed, they were killed.Some even ordered combat troops, breaking the last glass ceiling.

However, the Taliban was not their only enemies, and the base of Kandahar in the south of the country, was not a safety haven.Even there, at the heart of the deadliest conflict for the Canadian forces for half a century, the danger also came from the inside.

–9 - the dangerous basis of kandahar

After flew over a lunar desert surrounded by dizzying mountains, we land in a teeming and dusty fortress.A pot of more than 30,000 inhabitants who never sleep.Jets and helicopters take off 24 hours a day in a deafening roar, the shifts and explosions resound in the distance.It's hot, very hot: mercury can curl 50 ° C in the shade in summer.And the smell!An irrespirable mixture of excrement, diesel and burned waste assaults the nostrils.Welcome to Kandahar Airfield, known as Kaf, the largest NATO base in Afghanistan.

In this Champignon city buzzes dozens of languages and accents: those of soldiers from all over the world-Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Slovakia, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States, among others-and thoseThousands of civilian, Afghan or foreign employees, who provide the panoply of services that a machine of this size needs to turn.There are shops where you find flat -screen TVs or local crafts, fried chicken or chocolate breads.There is a hotel.Monster traffic caps.Party, concrete hockey matches, salsa lessons.And shady people who are prowling.

"There is everything there: violence, gangs, crime-even prostitution," said Captain Richard Clerk, equivalent to a human resources director for the military police.He himself was offered this service by a civilian during his stay on the basis, in 2010 and 2011. Certain areas are considered to be so dangerous that Canadian soldiers have been examined not to venture there.Soldiers are recommended to soldiers - not to go out all evening, even armed, unless you are accompanied.

Because the nights are black like kaf soot: lighting is reduced to the bare minimum, to avoid facilitating the task of the Taliban who take the basis for target.As it has grown, it has become in increasingly disturbing places, with these high cement walls built around buildings to protect them from rocket fire and which create gloomy corners, oppressive alleys everywhere, described RichardClerk."You feel like a rat in a labyrinth.»»

...

Five hundred meters separate it from the goal, no more.It has been dark recently.Cheryl Ross comes out of the laundry room of Kandahar Airfield, a bag of fresh clothing washed in each hand.To return to her tent, the forties must cross the sector of an Allied nation by borrowing an alley that runs along a fence in mesh.On the one hand, there are rows of tents;On the other, a recreational center.And at the end of the road, right there, his home.

Five minutes of walking.It’s enough for an unknown to intercept it and make his life in the air.So that he surprises her in behind, put a hand on her mouth and a knife on her throat-she can feel the tip of the blade on her skin.Crushed against the grid, she does not see man's face, just a piece of flesh that is discovered between his sleeve and her glove.She sees the bottom of her pants, a boot, and immediately recognizes the American army uniform.Thoughts tumble down at a crazy speed in his head while the scene, oddly, takes place in slow motion.Cheryl knows exactly what is happening to him.

"I had a decision to make," said this woman now 52 years old.I said to myself: O.K., my best chance of getting out of it is to let go, letting it happen and getting out of myself.And I guess I made the right choice, because my children still have a mother.»»

Thus, while the soldier brutally raped her against the barrier, she mentally endeavored to escape from her body.And in these horrible moments, she took another resolution: that of not blowing a word from her "incident" to anyone.

Once "it" finished, the Ross Sergente is recomposed, deposits her laundry in her tent, takes a shower, throws the sports tracks which she wore, puts on her uniform and goes to work.There are emergencies to be treated tonight.We are September 10, 2006, and the Canadian Forces are in the pangs of Operation Medusa - during which 12 of their own will be killed in a month (including a friend to her) -, the deadliest battle of the missionFor Canada.As a clerk attached to the military police, Cheryl must take care of the protocol.

No question of reporting crime to his police colleagues.No question of being treated as a victim.“I absolutely did not want to entrust them with such a thing.I would have immediately made me undergo a medical examination and returned to the house.My file would have been seen by about seven clerks, who would not have closed their mouths.I would have lost all the allowances that I was supposed to receive for this deployment.And I would have lost my medal.So, I would have been raped, I would have returned home and I wouldn't even have had my country star?Do you just find that?She said, her look fixes, her powerful and resolved voice filling her little Ottawa apartment.She cries almost at times, full of the energy of the revolt.

During the remaining seven months of his stay in Kandahar, Cheryl Ross will bury this nightmare deep in his being.Only an frozen thought will disturb her apparent calm: if she does not know her attacker, he knows who she is."He could be sitting next to me in the cafeteria and I wouldn't even know, right?"»»

A moment occurs when sorrow is no longer swallowed.Back in the country, the Sergente will work for a few more years as a clerk, to deal with the files of her comrades returning from Afghanistan in a wheelchair or a coffin.Then, in the fall of 2010, the dam broke up: the long sentence contained flooded it like a torrent, and it almost drowned there.Even today, the desire to die hovers in his mind, night terrors haunt his sleep and anxiety sometimes prevents him from going out.But life continues.Last September, the forces dismissed her due to her post-traumatic stress disorder, and the fifties returned to school benches in legal techniques."What annoys me the most," she said is that the army did not have in place a system to which I could turn with confidence.»»

...

Between 2002 and 2012, 15 sexual assaults on members of the Canadian forces in Afghanistan were reported to the military police.None led accusations against a Canadian.In four cases, the investigators determined that the complaint was not founded.In five others, no suspects could be identified, for lack of evidence, and the case was classified.Canadian military police having authority only on their own nationals, five files involving foreign suspects were processed by the police of the corresponding country - following which at least two attackers, an Afghan and an American, were charged,found guilty and punished.A final file also fell outside the Canadian jurisdiction, but could not be relayed to the competent authorities.

For each person who denounces this crime, how many Cheryl Ross who is silent?

Sources suggest that the threat was much more omnipresent than official figures indicate it.In 2006, Captain Nichola Goddard (who was going to become the first Canadian in history to fall in combat) told her husband in a letter, transcribed by journalist Valerie Fortney in the Sunray biography - The Death and Life of CaptainNichola Goddard."There were six rapes in the [Kandahar] camp last week, so in the evening we have to be an escort," she wrote, outraged to need chaperons when she was there to order a teamartillerymen.Captain Richard Clerk remembers that when he was in Kaf in 2010-2011, a sex predator was rampant on the basis, and the attacker portraits of the aggressor had been displayed.

In wartime, when the effectiveness of the mission becomes the supreme objective, the law of silence is perhaps even more severe for victims of sexual assault.This silence, they sometimes impose it themselves, by an overdeveloped sense of loyalty.And because they want to stay in the theater of operations, the nail of their career and condition of their advancement."Everyone wants their" Tour "," says lawyer and former infantry captain Phillip Millar.These women want to be part of the team at all costs.They weave very deep ties with some guys and they don't want to drop them.So they don't complain.But it also happens, he suspects, that commanders agitate the specter of express repatriation to muzzle the victims.

In five years of private practice, Phillip Millar says he was contacted by around thirty soldiers who have been sexually assaulted in service.One of them would have been raped by five men on a ship in a deployment in the Middle East a few years ago.Her superiors would have made her understand that they should send her back to the country if she was a complaint."It was a sneaky way to silence her," said the lawyer.They should have said: "These five guys will be repatriated and you can stay here and be helped."But she did not file a complaint, because she wanted to be deployed.»»

The imperatives of war can even, in some cases, prevail over the interests of justice.A trial in court martial for sexual assault has already been postponed to allow the accused to take part in a mission.Corporal Timothy Leblanc was accused of having violated a comrade in the bedroom with a brutal force, on the basis of Edmonton, in 2008. Reputed to be excellent in the theater of operations, the young man obtained to go inAfghanistan for six months before having to face justice.When he went to court, on his return to the country, he was found guilty, sentenced to 20 months in prison and forced to register for the National Register of Sex Delinquents.

...

Multinational operations are more than ever the norm in the military arena.Canadian soldiers may well find themselves in this kind of explosive melting pot, boosted with testosterone and adrenaline.About fifty countries have sent troops to Afghanistan: 50 armies with variable recruitment standards, from countries with dispient customs and values, in particular with regard to gender equality.

However, NATO, which oversees the intervention, refers to each contingents the responsibility of managing the risks of sexual violence for the deployed soldiers."It is up to the nations to establish prevention programs, investigate allegations and take any appropriate disciplinary or judicial measure.As such, NATO is not directly concerned, "said a spokesperson.

Each country also supervises "fraternization" in its own way, euphemism designating the consenting relations between soldiers. Canadian forces prohibit them strictly, under penalty of repatriation - even married couples are not supposed to kiss or hold by the hand during a mission. The American army has similar rules, while Europeans are deemed more flexible on this level. Nine, twelve months without intimate contacts-up to fifteen for Americans-, it may be too hard to bear for some, especially in such extreme conditions, supports psychologist Pascale Brillon. “We are on the borders of human emotions. We know that in the period of great stress linked to a threat to his life, sexual desire can increase. Because it’s very visceral. Inhibitions can decrease a lot. There is a certain impression of being far from the world, we lose our bearings, our roots. All this social question, we must ask ourselves: what do we do with the sexual desires of those we send like that? It’s still a fundamental need. How can we exorcise them to prevent it from turning against innocent victims? »»

But sexual violence is not just the fact of too burning aggressors of libido.They are also the expression of a balance of power on a disputed ground.

–10 - the leaders must set the tone

Surpsing warrior circles like other circles where men are more numerous and have more power.When women encroach on their territory, some may be involved in humiliating them, intimidating them and even violating them to defend their own status in the organization, explains psychologist Jennifer Berdahl, professor at the school management schoolUniversity of Toronto and harassment specialist in the workplace.We would observe the same phenomenon in the construction industry, in certain university faculties, among blue passes, firefighters, police.The Royal Canada Gendarmerie must also face several prosecution of this nature from current and old employees, including a collective appeal which, if authorized, could be ras up nearly 300 complainants.

People who harass their colleagues are not necessarily powerful attackers, but these behaviors are not independent, underlines Jennifer Berdahl.Like communicating vases, if one is tolerated, the other risk more to spread."There is a strong correlation between the three types of sexual harassment that we are studying: sexist behaviors, unwanted sexual attention and constraint.Although aggressions are rarer, research shows that it occurs in contexts where other forms are present.»»

A study carried out on behalf of the United States Department of Defense, published in 2003 in the journal American Journal of Industrial Medicine, goes in this direction.Iowa researchers interviewed some 500 veterans women to determine the risk of rape.Those who described a hostile work environment - including sexual comments and unwelcome advances - were six times more likely to have been raped during their career.If their superior made degrading gestures or comments to them, or to tolerate these behaviors in the unit, the probability was three to four times higher.

The Canadian forces may be praising one of the main tools they have to clean up work relationships of this kind of poison.The "conflict resolution centers" allow, with a certain effectiveness, it seems, to resolve harassment situations in an informant way, without going through a heavy official complaint.Until the fall of 2012, there were 19 centers scattered on bases across the country;Next year, there will only be 4.

Iowa researchers have put their finger on another key to the equation: leadership.Forces may hammer their zero tolerance policy with regard to sexual violence, it has no echo on the ground if the leaders do not follow.It is up to the chief to set the tone for these watchwords to take root."If people are convinced that their leaders consider these behaviors inadmissible and if there are important consequences for the faults, we can really reduce their frequency," said Professor Berdahl.There are very good examples of military leaders who took the front problem, and the change was almost immediate.»»

This is what a officio has been entrusted to us that suffered the troops of troops during a training in Wainwright a few years ago.The infantrymen took pleasure in singing a sexist refrain in his path, in addition to having posted photos of her personal effects to the cafeteria to make fun of her.The company commander, a major, did not raise a finger.After three months of this merry-go-round, the scapegoat opened it to its colonel, a few heads higher."It stopped that day," said the woman, who prefers to keep anonymity."I was amazed to see that this is all I had to do from the start.I should have told him about it before.»»

We will not be surprised that an institution also attached to its traditions is long resistant to changes in mentalities that shake the rest of the country.But this microsociety also presents a potential for transformation which is not the same elsewhere."This is an isolated environment, on which we have a lot of power," said doctoral student Victoria Tait, from Carleton University, who studies the resistance to the integration of military women."So we have the opportunity to make breakthroughs that would simply be unthinkable throughout society.»»

Just take the opportunity.

–11– recruits that see everything in pink

" Upright !Sat !Upright !Bras at the top!Sat !Arms down!»»

Le sergent Evan Duff essaie de réveiller la soixantaine d’étudiants en uniforme de combat qui s’entassent devant lui, dans une classe de l’École de leadership et de recrues, à la garnison Saint-Jean. Ils s’exécutent comme un seul corps, bondissant sur leurs pieds derrière leurs pupitres dans un tapage de chaises bousculées, déjà rompus à l’art d’obéir. Ces jeunes de partout au pays, certains à peine sortis de l’adolescence, en sont à la 4^e semaine d’une formation de base qui en durera 14 et qui fera d’eux des soldats de la Force régulière. En cet après-midi de septembre, ils se farcissent trois heures d’une leçon théorique sur le thème « Servir dans un milieu de travail diversifié », débitée par un instructeur autoritaire à la voix monocorde.

This kind of course, which the military must follow at regular intervals, the forces present it as one of their shields against sexual offenses.However, it will be very little about these violence today.While the recruits take a studiously note the pro-jete content on the screen, the sergeant reads, almost verbatim, para-graphs stuffed with legalist jargon.On employment equity.The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Harassment prevention policy.Racism.

What about sexual misconduct?This part of the presentation will be completed in ... 10 minutes and three slides.Not a word to help recruits detect sexual violence.Nothing on the resources offered to victims of rape or on the ways of filing a complaint.During these three hours, the words "sexual assault" will only be pronounced twice.

However, to expand the training of recruits was just one of the recommendations made by the military police in 2009, in a special report which we obtained a copy.This contained statistics on files for sexual offenses that led to accusations for the period from 2004 to 2008. The authors recommended that recruits are taught to recognize sexual assault, that they will be informed that they will besupported if they are victims, and that they are made to know the options to report this crime to the authorities.

In the corridors of the school, similar to those of a versatile, you have to store on the side to let the troops pass guys and girls who walk in cadence like the most determined of schoolchildren.During the first five weekends of their training, young people are not entitled to any visit or exit.This step is crucial for cement to begin to take between the bricks, this formidable bond called body spirit which is the basis of the building building.And who will make the soldiers, the soldiers will be forgotten for the benefit of their common cause.

In the small group of students designated to meet us between two classes, it is already done. They radiate a brilliance that could easily be confused with that of blissful lovers. They who have known each other for barely a month are convinced that none of their comrades would hurt them and that no one around would tolerate it. "Whether you are a guy or a girl, we all work in the same direction. You have to help each other, "said soldier recruit Benjamin Hébert. "As soon as we cross the school door, you feel equal to everyone. We don't feel that Untel is black, that I am the oldest, "adds Caroline Perron, a mother who begins a second career. "Me, harassment, it did not touch my mind, because I know that we are so well supported in the army. No matter the problem, there is a resource. What if you pass a case of harassment, where is the team spirit? »»

Their solidarity, however, has a dark side that they do not yet see: often, it is she who silences the victims.

* * *

In some survivors, these contradictory impulses never fade quite.In her house in Sherbrooke, Lise Gauthier keeps, displayed on the wall of her office, a charcoal received as a gift during his referral to forces.This drawing represents it as a "lark"-as we nicknamed the members of the Bagotville squadron who take care to fly the fighter planes-standing next to an aircraft with the tapered profile, the majestic CF-18.

Even today, from the end of her distress, there are times when she can't help but think so: a real soldier does not let go of her brothers in arms."We are told that we are a big family.If something happens to you, you're going to have a nasty gang behind you to protect yourself.By denouncing them, I feel like betraying them, she said.Military one day, a military still.Despite the rapes, in all its wounds, Lise Gauthier still carries, deep down, her uniform.

...

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