May 5, 2019: The US military is reporting a disturbing spike in the number of active-duty service members who said they’d experienced sexual assault last year, raising questions once again about the military’s handling of misconduct.

The Pentagon estimates that about 20,500 service members across the military branches — about 13,000 women and 7,500 men — were sexually assaulted in the 2018 fiscal year, based on data from an anonymous survey that’s compiled by the Department of Defense every two years.

That’s a four-year high — and an alarming jump from 2016, in which 14,900 service members said they had been sexually assaulted.

The increase mostly came from female active duty members. The report found that women ages 17 to 24 were the most likely to say they’d been assaulted. (The number of sexual assaults reported by men rose just slightly.)

The troubling statistics also show that the majority - about 70 percent - still do not officially report such incidents.

Read more:

‍Pentagon Report Shows Sharp Rise in Military Sexual Assaults (vox.com)

See also:

Shanahan calls for reforms as military sexual assaults rise by 38%; highest for young women (usatoday.com)

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