FROM: Margaret.Anthony@posttimes.com

TO: David.Dain@posttimes.com

SUBJ: FILING [hed] In the West, Rape Fears May Delay Pregnancy

DATE: November 7

[dateline] Denver, CO

With contraception, surgical or injected, made available free to development women, pregnancy in the West has become a matter of choice. Many women are delaying having children because they are poor, because they see no future for a child raised in a development, and because for young women in Western developments, sexuality has become an arena fraught with danger. Statistics show that rape is anywhere from three to ten times more prevalent in developments than in the average Coastal neighborhood.

In response, the women of this development have organized a Night Patrol (a symbolic name, since curfews keep everyone indoors at night) to mete out vigilante justice.

But even with that frontier justice Eleanor, the Night Patrol’s commander, thinks the official statistics significantly underestimate the incidence of forced sex in her community, for one simple reason: “They don’t count the [MPs].”

She is talking about what she claims is the common practice among Army policemen of forcing themselves on development girls. She and other women in this neighborhood are reluctant to apply the word 'rape,' since in most cases girls don’t say no or fight back, strict requirements, from what they understand of Army law’s definition. But women here do stress that in many cases the sex is not consensual.

“They tell you to do something, you feel like you have to do it,” says Julie. “[MPs] have a lot of power.”

Under such conditions, women are often reluctant to abandon their birth control. Even though forced sex with Army personnel appears to be uncommon—probably more uncommon than rape by development men—women here fear it most, as the threat they cannot fight.

[subhed] The Army Response

Army officials vehemently deny that their personnel engage in forced sex with development women.

“We vigorously investigate all claims of rape as soon as they’re made to this base,” says Maj. Thom J. McCallan, head of Policing and Community Affairs for the Denver and South Suburbs Municipal Encampment. “The fact is, only one such accusation was brought during the last year, and the soldier in question was fairly tried and cleared of all charges.” That is despite the fact, he says, that the Army definition of rape is very broad, encompassing many categories of nonconsent including threats, implied coercion and intoxication.

“We strongly discourage any fraternization between soldiers and civilians,” says McCallan. “Those charges simply are not credible.”

A review of disciplinary and complaint records, however, shows that the one soldier investigated for rape in the past year (whose name was not available) was never tried. Charges were dropped when his accuser failed to appear at a hearing.

Records also show many more “contact incident” forms filed in the Denver area for women than men. Contact incident forms log every visit a civilian makes to an encampment. For instance, in Denver one such form is filed each week to show the arrival and departure of the local laundry contractor. Another recent form records a man’s request that soldiers at one checkpoint be more careful to point their weapons away from a schoolyard.

The Denver Encampment files also contain a surprising number of contact incident reports from women reporting sexual contact with soldiers. Development women claim this is evidence of a whitewash. “Whenever we go there [to Five Points] and complain,” says Eleanor, “they file it as a consensual event and give us drugs.”

Indeed, the forms do show that the women were usually referred for STD testing and given prophylactic antibiotics. According to McCallan that’s the reason the women come to the encampment in the first place.

“It’s free money to them,” he declares. “They can sell those drugs for quite a lot. I can’t blame them. These people are dealing with serious poverty. But that’s the reason we believe in our mission. You can’t rebuild the economy here without law and order.”

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