Congress moves to protect Peace Corps volunteers

JIM ABRAMS

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Con­gress has responded to com­plaints that the U.S. Peace Corps has not done enough to pro­tect its vol­un­teers from sex­ual assaults, with leg­is­la­tion requir­ing the agency to train par­tic­i­pants bet­ter in how to avoid attacks.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives voted 406–0 Tues­day to pass the bill and send it to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama for his sig­na­ture. The Sen­ate passed it by voice vote in September.

The mea­sure pro­vides whistle-blower pro­tec­tions for vol­un­teers who report threat­en­ing activ­i­ties and requires the Peace Corps to develop sex­ual assault risk-reduction and response train­ing. The agency also must estab­lish a victim’s sup­port office.

“The Peace Corps has fallen dis­turbingly short in pro­vid­ing ade­quate pro­tec­tion for its vol­un­teers and lacks a proper sys­tem for respond­ing to crimes, includ­ing mur­der and sex­ual assault,” said Repub­li­can Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chair­woman of the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee. She said the bill she co-sponsored would make vol­un­teer safety “the Peace Corps’ over­ar­ch­ing priority.”

The Peace Corps, cel­e­brat­ing its 50th anniver­sary this year, has been hit by crit­i­cisms that it is doing too lit­tle to pro­tect the secu­rity of vol­un­teers it sends abroad.

In May, Peace Corps Direc­tor Aaron S. Williams appeared before a For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee hear­ing to apol­o­gize for the agency’s short­com­ings on vol­un­teer safety issues.

“The Peace Corps has not always been suf­fi­ciently respon­sive, com­pas­sion­ate or sen­si­tive to vic­tims of crime and their fam­i­lies,” he said at the time. “It is heart­break­ing to learn, and I apol­o­gize for any addi­tional pain the agency has inflicted on our volunteers.”

Williams spoke after the tes­ti­mony of three vol­un­teers who had been raped while serv­ing over­seas and the mother of a fourth vol­un­teer who was mur­dered in Benin. They charged that the agency did lit­tle to train vol­un­teers how to avoid sex­ual attacks and was unhelp­ful in the after­math of the crimes.

The bill was named after the mur­dered vol­un­teer, Kate Puzey, 24, from Geor­gia. She was killed in 2009 after report­ing a local col­league for allegedly molest­ing some of the young girls they taught. Repub­li­can Sen. Johnny Isak­son intro­duced the Sen­ate bill along with Sen. Bar­bara Boxer, a Democrat.

Williams said after the vote that it was a fit­ting trib­ute to Puzey, and the bill “cod­i­fies many of the reforms that the agency has put in place over the past two years to ensure that Peace Corps vol­un­teers serv­ing world­wide receive the sup­port and pro­tec­tion they deserve.”

The Peace Corps has sent more than 200,000 Amer­i­cans to serve in 139 coun­tries since its found­ing in 1961 by Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy. Cur­rently, more than 9,000 vol­un­teers are serv­ing in 76 nations.

Posted by AP News on Nov 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.