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Limbo for US Women Reporting Iraq Assaults
By James Risen
The New York Times
Wednesday 13 January 2008
Washington - Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive
trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed
in April 2004. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road
between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only
when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.
But not long after the ambush, Ms. Kineston said, she was sexually assaulted
by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after
she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers.
Later, she said she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to
the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in
Iraq, she was fired.
"I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for
KBR," said Ms. Kineston, who won a modest arbitration award against KBR.
"At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army
and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn't
do anything. I still have nightmares. They changed my life forever, and they
got away with it."
Ms. Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they
were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but
now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or even significant
compensation.
Many of the same legal and logistical obstacles that have impeded other types
of investigations involving contractors in Iraq, like shootings involving security
guards for Blackwater Worldwide, have made it difficult for the United States
government to pursue charges related to sexual offenses. The military justice
system does not apply to them, and the reach of other American laws on contractors
working in foreign war zones remains unclear five years after the United States
invasion of Iraq.
KBR and other companies, meanwhile, have required Iraq-bound employees to agree
to take personnel disputes to private arbitration rather than sue the companies
in American courts. The companies have repeatedly challenged arbitration claims
of sexual assault or harassment brought by women who served in Iraq, raising
fears among some women about going public with their claims.
The issue gained national attention when Jamie Leigh Jones, a 23-year-old former
employee of KBR, testified at a Congressional hearing in December that she had
been gang-raped by co-workers in Iraq in 2005. She appeared again on Tuesday
and talked in detail about the episode, urging lawmakers to make it easier for
crime victims to sue employers.
"Victims of crime perpetrated by employees of taxpayer-funded government
contracts in Iraq deserve the same standard of treatment and protection governed
by the same laws whether they are working in the U.S. or abroad," she
said.
Since she spoke out publicly in December, other women have begun to step forward.
Ms. Jones and her lawyers said 38 women who worked as contractors in Iraq,
Kuwait and other countries had contacted her since she testified to discuss
their own experiences. Now, Congressional leaders are seeking answers from the
Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies to try to determine the scope
of the threats facing women who are contractors.
Paul Brand, a Chicago psychologist who counsels contractors who have served
in Iraq, said the harassment of female workers by male colleagues was common.
"The extent of the harassment varies greatly from contractor to contractor,
depending on how diligently they screen job candidates and management's
willingness to encourage women to report problems," he said. "In
many instances, very little or nothing is done."
Comprehensive statistics on sexual assaults in Iraq are unavailable because
no one in the government or the contracting industry is tracking them. Court
documents, interviews with those who were victims, their lawyers and other professionals,
along with the limited data made available by the Bush administration, suggest
a troubling trend.
The Criminal Investigation Command of the Army has reported that it investigated
124 cases of sexual assault in Iraq over the last three years. Those figures,
provided to Senator Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who has taken the lead
in the Senate on the issue, include cases involving both contractors and military
personnel, but do not include cases involving contractors or soldiers investigated
by other branches of the military.
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the State Department has separately reported
that it has investigated four cases of rape or sexual assault involving female
contractors, including Ms. Jones's case. But the Pentagon has so far failed
to respond to a request from Mr. Nelson for more comprehensive data, including
the number of rape examinations done by military doctors in Iraq on behalf of
female contractors. What is more, the Bush administration has not offered to
develop a coordinated response to the problem, aides to Senator Nelson and experts
have said.
Heather Browne, a spokeswoman for KBR, said the company would protect women
working in Iraq. "KBR's commitment to the safety and security of
all employees is unwavering," she said in a statement. "One instance
of sexual harassment or assault is too many and unacceptable." The company
declined to say how many female employees had reported that they were victims
of sex crimes in Iraq.
The administration's decision to rely so heavily on outside contractors
- about 180,000 contractors work in Iraq, significantly outnumbering United
States military personnel in the country - probably made it inevitable
that contractor crime would emerge as a problem as the war dragged on. KBR,
by far the largest military contractor in Iraq, says that it now has 2,383 women
there, of a total work force of 54,170.
A shooting in Baghdad last September involving Blackwater guards that left
17 Iraqis dead highlighted the lack of clarity in the laws governing contractors.
In cases involving sexual assault, for example, soldiers and other military
personnel can be prosecuted under the military justice system, but that system
does not apply to contractors.
Instead, a little-used law, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act,
seems to be the closest statute that could apply to contractors charged with
rape, but its legal reach has been under wide debate since the Blackwater shootings.
Women who worked as contractors in Iraq say that while on the job they encountered
sexual discrimination and harassment, which sometimes veered dangerously to
sexual assaults and even rapes.
Linda Lindsey, of Houston, who worked for KBR in Iraq from 2004 until early
2007, said that she often saw evidence of sexual harassment or discrimination,
and that male supervisors often tried to force female employees to grant sexual
favors in exchange for promotions or other benefits.
She added that the company's management seemed unwilling to take action
to improve working conditions for women in Iraq. "We filed complaints
against one supervisor, and the complaints disappeared," Ms. Lindsey said
in an interview. "The impression you got was that they really didn't
want to hear it, because the money was coming in. Most of it was bad management
on-site."
Pamela Jones, of Texas, a KBR logistics coordinator in Kuwait in 2003 and 2004,
was sexually assaulted by a supervisor. "It was known that if you started
complaining that you could lose your job," said Ms. Jones, who added that
she reported it to management. "They give you an 800 number to report.
But then they shoved it under the rug, and they told me I was a pest."
She later won an arbitration award from KBR, according to her Houston lawyer,
Peter Costea.
Lawyers for women who have reported that they were raped or assaulted while
working in Iraq say that one of the biggest obstacles they face is the arbitration
requirement.
That means that women who say they were victimized have had great difficulty
taking KBR to court for failing to better protect its female employees in Iraq.
KBR defended the arbitration process, saying it is fair. The fact that Ms.
Kineston and Pamela Jones won awards is an indication that the system works,
said Ms. Browne, the KBR spokeswoman.
Jamie Leigh Jones said she had been fighting to get her case out of the arbitration
process and into a federal court, and she testified before a House committee
on Tuesday in support of the need to change the laws governing private arbitration.
KBR says it "disputes Ms. Jones's version of the incident she alleges."
After her Congressional testimony in December, she also testified before a
federal grand jury in Florida, which has begun a criminal inquiry into her case
more than two years after she first reported the rape.
Her lawyer, Todd Kelly, says he believes that the government has finally been
prodded into action only because of the public attention brought by her case.
"Her case came out on television before they said anything about a grand
jury," he said.
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