Last updated on May 12, 2011
This morning’s New York Times had a front-page article on the incidence of rape in the Peace Corps, and on how many Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) who report being victims of rape every year:
“But from 2000 to 2009, on average, 22 Peace Corps women each year reported being the victims of rape or attempted rape, the agency says. During that time, more than 1,000 Peace Corps volunteers reported sexual assaults, including 221 rapes or attempted rapes. Because sexual crimes often go unreported, experts say the incidence is likely to be higher, though they and the Peace Corps add that it is difficult to assess whether the volunteers face any greater risk overseas than women in the United States do.”
Those are very disturbing numbers, but what is perhaps more disturbing is how PCVs who report these sexual crimes seem to be treated once they return:
“Jess Smochek arrived in Bangladesh in 2004 as a 23-year-old Peace Corps volunteer with dreams of teaching English and ‘helping the world.’ She left six weeks later a rape victim after being brutalized in an alley by a knife-wielding gang.
When she returned to the United States, the reception she received from Peace Corps officials was as devastating, she said, as the rape itself. In Bangladesh, she had been given scant medical care; in Washington, a counselor implied that she was to blame for the attack.”
EDIT: Saundra Schimmelpfennig over at Good Intentions Are Not Enough, who discusses her own experience in the comments below, has a post on her blog describing her own experience.
I’ve considered writing on this myself as my own experience in the Peace Corps leads me to believe this is not surprising. I had several incidences where the PC was not looking out for my best interest or even working counter to it.
Before I left I had a fiance’, we broke up a few months into the 2 year stint. He later committed suicide. The Peace Corps nurse said I should have never joined the Peace Corps if I was engaged and implied that I was partially responsible for his death. When I asked to see a counselor I was told I could only have three sessions before being removed from service and sent to DC for intense psychological treatment.
I also sustained a back injury in PC. We were always told that the great thing about PC is that we get follow up medical care for all injuries even after we leave. When my back injury flared up again and I was facing possible back surgery, I contact PC. They told me I had to pay for the surgery myself, they would then examine the surgical records and determine whether or not they would reimburse me. Who can pay for their own surgery and why can’t they determine that ahead of time. What a horrible system.
I had another situation where PC gave out my work number to someone they knew I was trying to prevent from contacting me. He ended up calling me at my new office and I had to handle the situation – in Thai – with all of my new coworkers listening in. If he had been someone that was violent, he now knew exactly where I worked.
So I’m not surprised by people’s stories. In PC you have to be completely able to look after your own best interests, because PC does a bad job of stepping in to help.
Thank you for being so open about your experience with PC, Saundra. Goodness, you have had some awful interactions, and I am sorry you had to deal with that on top of the mere difficulty of being in PC. My wife and I were engaged before she left for PC, and I think that was one of the reason why she ETed out of PC. When she did, however, the in-country PC office was FAR from helpful and supportive, and I seem to recall she was read the riot act, if not yelled at. I will let her chime in if she wants to.
Thanks for your comment, and I sincerely hope you make the most of your sabbatical!
I don’t want to belittle anyone’s negative experiences with Peace Corps or sexual assault of lack of support. This post is not about any of those situations.
But Marc, your comment illustrates precisely why Peace Corps is correct to discourage volunteers who are in long term relationships from serving alone. It is one of the primary causes of early termination, and the program is two years for a reason.
The first time I applied, I was asked to come in for a counseling session with my boyfriend at the time, to talk about whether we would break up if I went. He said we would; I pulled my application. Two years later, I re-applied, single, and had a wonderful, 2-year experience – and the second year was far richer than the first.
I was frustrated with PC for requiring the counseling, but they were absolutely right to do it; they are investing in the volunteer, the community, the reputation of the service, they deserve to have volunteers who will honor their full commitment, and volunteers need to understand what they are committing to.
Thanks for your comment, Amanda. I should probably note that our engagement came after my wife had been admitted and had learned of where she was going to be posted, so counseling was never even an option. Even if it had, I would have encouraged her to go and do it. I was planning on going to live in the same country as her (but not at her post) during the summers while I wrote my dissertation.
I never asked my wife to come home, as I had been away doing fieldwork myself. When my wife called to say she wanted to come home, I asked her to make sure that this was not because of me and of us. She always said it wasn’t. As I said, our being engaged was but one of the reasons.
Actually, when I glanced through the article this morning a number of things went through my head, many of which Marc has already heard and so I didn’t feel like I needed to re-iterate all over again (this is Marc’s wife by the way). However, since there is an opportunit to my put in my two cents…
I, like Saundra, got the feeling that there was little support in some respects, although in my case it was for volunteers who weren’t “tough enough to make it” through their service (not quite verbatim but definitely strongly implied during a conversation with an in-country staff member). I don’t regret my time with Peace Corps at all, but that is largely due to the fellow volunteers I met who were key in helping me through my difficult time.
Some of the administrative staff, on the other hand, and whether intentionally or not, made me feel as if I was just taking up their time and was just another appointment to get through before they could get to their “real work.” I did get read a bit of a riot act during my exit interview, enough so that I was shaking when I left the office. The decision to ET was not an easy one, and it was made for multiple reasons, most of which had to do with myself and a few which involved other people in my life. I didn’t particularly enjoy being judged and told I had taken the decision lightly, was being a flake and was wasting valuable resources.
I personally didn’t expect much support after I left since I didn’t complete the tour, so I can’t provide much input on that aspect. I think the Peace Corps is a great experience for many people, single, married, what have you (there was a married couple in my cohort). It is meant to challenge you in many ways, and for this I will always be grateful. I think the staff are great for managing the high-level things, like getting visas, making sure you get the right vaccines and evacuating. However, it seemed to me during my short time in country that volunteers did best to rely on themselves and each other to help with the more day-to-day struggles, challenges, and achievements.
[…] Today, congress is holding a hearing related to people that have been raped in the Peace Corps (PC) and the way the Peace Corps treated them both in country and after they returned to the states. You can read a New York Times piece on the issue here, and here’s the post that got me thinking about this again Rape and the Peace Corps. […]
Hi all,
Saundra and Janet, thanks for sharing your experiences. I think the question about ability to be apart from your significant other really varies from person to person. However, the stories that the two of you relate are similar to many of my friends’ experiences, a few of which were traumatic. Another friend from my PhD cohort was working on aid for aid workers, if you will — how institutions respond to the needs of those returning from working in emergency situations, whether they be conflict or natural disasters, and I think this end of development work is grossly neglected, as demonstrated by the PC stories.
One of my fears, however, is based on some of the rhetoric in the story about people working in “tough places”… It is true, of course, that some places are dangerous, but I hope that the overall trend doesn’t become “it’s too dangerous to work/live in country x”. I’ve always found that no matter where you are, it pays to be aware of your surroundings and a bit street savvy.
I’m wondering, thus, what types of preparation people receive via the PC, and your impressions of why the organization does not seem to support its volunteers.
Hello all,
Great discussion.
I doubt the PC program as a higher incidence of violence & traumatic episodes toward its volunteers that other, comparable volunteering organization.
Which is beside the point, I know.
And I don’t believe that the PC program is better or worse than other organizations to deal and efficiently support its volunteers following violent & traumatic episodes.
Many other international organizations – small & big – are just as scruffy and ready to abandon you in times of needs.
Which is also beside the point. It’s not because the PC program is “as bad” as similar programs that it makes it OK the way they deal with the issues at hand.
But I believe that the PC program suffers from a question of perceptions.
Selection process, pledging ceremonies, 10-volumes-thick Rules book, bullet-proof insurances – volunteers to the PC program come to expect so much from their program that I feel like many becomes greatly desoriented when, once on the field, they realize that, just like in many other volunteering abroad organizations, well, they are on their own.
They are not casi-civil servants anymore, once they are in their mud hut in the middle of the desert.
I believe the PC program is too big and too bureaucratic, on top of suffering from identity crisis. Is it a chance for americans, young and old, to live an adventure and make exotic friends while serving their country from abroad, without a uniform and a weapon? Or is it a governmental agency that is half a diplomatic tool, half a human resources nightmare, choked under the weight of ts own rules & procedures and staffed by sometimes indifferent workers that you might have well seen before at the Department of Motor Vehicule?
in the process, individual volunteers get lost in the vortex, when something terrible falls upon them. They are dealt with with the sensitivity you indeed would expect from the DMV. It is immensly sad.
And that is not touching upon the subject of the sometimes (often?) meanless of sisyphian tasks some PCVs are sent upon. Which might also be distressing to some.
I’m all for volunteering abroad. & I’m not even remotely conservative. But the PC program needs, in my humble opinion, to become human-sized. Smaller. focused. less bureaucratic. More discriminating in its selection process.
be detached from the State Department.
and maybe be managed by NGOs, while funded by the government.