To honor its 50th anniversary, the Peace Corps has gathered stories reflecting many facets of volunteer life: stories about beans and rice, lunatic taxi rides, milking cows, surviving malaria, and other strange encounters. The stories paint a rich portrait of the organization and its volunteers – more than 8,000 in 2010. The stories also highlight the contributions of its volunteers, who each answered a calling to serve other countries with his or her time, talent and intellect.
This mosaic omits stories of the 100 volunteers who, last year alone, were the victims of physical and sexual assault during their time of service.
First Response Action is an organization created by six Returned Volunteers to advocate for improved prevention education and response protocols for volunteers who become victims of crime. Based on numerous interviews, First Response Action has learned that incidences of assault, and the overwhelming problems faced by volunteers after being assaulted, are not unique to any country of service; rather they reveal systemic inadequacies in the Peace Corps” response policies.
The Peace Corps’ safety training centers on the assumption that if a volunteer follows the rules, integrates successfully and acts according to cultural norms at all times, nothing bad will happen. The not-so-tacit message is that, if you are the victim of a crime, you must have departed from Peace Corps’ protocol. In other words, you are to blame.
As a volunteer, I followed all the Peace Corps rules. During pre-service training, I took copious notes. I learned to live and work in my host culture. I followed all the guidelines, listened to every lecture, and read the Volunteer Handbook. I entered my community with energy and idealism. But after months of living at my site, I was the victim of an assault. Someone that I knew well and had learned to trust through my time in my community committed a senseless act that left me shattered and humiliated. I had no idea how or to whom to report the incident. The local police force included the perpetrator’s family and I felt unsafe at every turn. The Handbook had no helpful information. Instead, it assured me only that my report would not be handled with the confidentiality that I desired.
The attack I experienced had a devastating impact on my life. Yet the Peace Corps data collection system classifies this type of assault as “Minor,” because it did not involve the use of a deadly weapon. I’m confident I can speak for countless victims over the last 50 years, and say this: the only thing minor about our experiences was the Peace Corps’ response.
Currently the Peace Corps has no established methods for Volunteers to access victim services. After reporting my own incident, I never received referrals to counseling or medical services. In fact, while Peace Corps carefully tracks reported incidents, they report that they only offer or plan to offer services to victims in just 56 percent of cases they classify as major sexual assault cases.
Over the past three decades, the fields of sexual assault prevention and victim assistance have developed well-researched survivor-centered practices. Why hasn’t Peace Corps adopted these best practices? Why was it that, in the delicate moments after I had reported an assault, the Peace Corps Medical Officer’s first question was “Should I feel sorry for you?”
The Peace Corps has recently published a number of documents acknowledging Volunteer crime victims. The Peace Corps now must create policies that adequately prepare Volunteers for the reality of crime, and provide a comprehensive response when a crime occurs. Protocols must protect the volunteer’s need for confidentiality with documented, accessible response procedures that are printed in the Volunteer Handbook. Victim Advocates must be made available to ensure coordination of victims” services both in-country and back home.
These are vital steps that the Peace Corps must take to create a culture that is more responsive to survivors, where fault is appropriately assigned to the perpetrator and not to the volunteer. An agency so laudably devoted to service has this duty to take care of its own.
Kate Finn is a Colorado native who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica. Kate graduated from Princeton University and is currently the program coordinator for the Victim Services Network out of the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
