DESPITE pending court proceedings, civil society has lashed out at the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) again arising from the latest incident in which two soldiers have been charged with the rape of a woman soldier at Up Park Camp on Thursday, March 11.

As news of the incident broke Friday evening, the institution was once again given a black eye in a matter of two months following the scandal, in January, that led to the resignation of a JDF officer amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

The men, a 22-year-old from St Mary and a 19-year-old from St Catherine, are being held pending court on March 29. The 22-year-old has been charged with the offence of rape, grievous sexual assault, and robbery with aggravation, while the 19-year-old was charged with aiding and abetting all those offences.

They were both JDF privates at the time of the incident.

Patrick Lalor, policy and advocacy officer at Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, told the Jamaica Observer that, generally, acts of sexual violence against women were under-reported, and when you see two issues come out of the JDF in a matter of months it begs the question of what goes on internally.

“It leaves me to wonder what really is happening there, and if this is in any way an institution that is allowing men to feel they have some amount of right or authority to exploit women and their bodies.

“When it is happening in institutions like the JDF, that we expect to provide protection for citizens, it’s really troubling. It is a male-dominated institution, for sure, and we know the struggles women have had over the years across the world with these institutions. The issue of sexual exploitation has always been a challenge women have with these institutions. Two cases in such a short time is troubling,” Lalor told the Sunday Observer.

He added that it is good to know the men have been charged and dismissed from the JDF, but said it still leaves the question of why is it we are hearing of a second incident, so close in time to the first, occurring in such an institution.

“If they are allegedly doing this to their own it leaves the question in my mind what may be happening in incidents where they have to interface with the public. You wonder what are we unleashing on the public if these are persons being sent to provide protection, enforce the law, and defend,” he said.

Lalor called for a robust internal intervention that includes external expertise which can openly give an account that the interventions actually took place.

“It is an institution that loves to boast about having all the different expertise internally, and everybody among their ranks to do this and that, and in my mind that opens the possibility to a cover-up and keeping things down when anything happens. If the counsellor, gender-based violence expert, everybody dealing with them is a member, it breeds a whole atmosphere of keeping it in the ranks and cover-up. You can’t police yourselves. They need to be opened up to more scrutiny, such as access to information so there can be better checks and balances.

“We need to be made aware of programmes being implemented to have members of the JDF trained, sensitised about violence against women, and understanding this is a violation of their human rights. I would love to see them pulling resources from external experts and civil society to assist in this regard, so we can be sure it is happening. We don’t want to hear you have pulled expertise from amongst your ranks to do it, but that you have pulled external expertise who can freely talk to say, ‘Yes, we went in and a number of officers, soldiers were so trained,’ “ Lalor added.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Joy Crawford, executive director at Eve for Life,, who asserted that unless the triggers are addressed, the cycle will continue.

“One of the first things that jumped out at me was the age of the alleged perpetrators. That was a concern of mine as these were young men, and what is their influence and their triggers that result in the act of rape? That’s something we need to address. How do we, from now, start addressing men and boys’ understanding that a female has a right to her body — autonomy. She has a right to her speech to say no, she has a right to be free from torture, a right to her health and her life. When she is approached by a male, and it starts from day one, the catcalling, men being derogatory in how they see women as an object of sex… She has a right to her speech to say I do not want you, I do not want to proceed. When these things are said, and it is ignored by a perpetrator, then society must stop justifying where she was, why she was there, who she was with, was she from uptown, was she from downtown. That perception that females are our property and we can do this to her and she really has to take it is the issue from the start,” Crawford said.

“Unless we start addressing that it is misuse of power, an issue of breaching the rights of women, an issue of human rights, it’s also an issue of crime, and treat it that way — and stop treating the issue of sexual crime as a man and woman story or relational story — we are not going to put an end to this. We have a society, a world where femininity, the woman’s right to be woman, and not become a subject of male dominance is totally breached,” Crawford said.

Crawford, however, commended the response of the JDF with turning the men over to the police. She stated that the discrediting factor would have been if it was handled differently, as the perpetrator must be the focus whenever there is an incident of sexual assault, rape, or sexual violation.

Further, Senator Donna Scott-Mottley, Opposition spokesperson on justice and gender affairs, said the swift action of the Jamaica Constabulary Force in charging the members of the JDF must be applauded.

In January, Senator Scott-Mottley, in a press release, said she was appalled at the apparent sexist approach to discipline and order within the JDF, following the issue of sexual misconduct of a JDF officer and the punishment meted out to the woman of a lower rank.

The release also said the discrepancies in the treatment of the officer and his junior were discriminatory and a reflection of the chauvinism typical of many military organisations worldwide.

At the time, shadow minister of national security, Peter Bunting called for the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) to investigate the JDF, stating that the military is accustomed to a culture of self-governance, but was not entitled to abuse any citizen nor the public’s trust. He also said investigations should include a wider enquiry into the alleged culture of discrimination against women soldiers that allegedly exists in the JDF.

In relation to the rape allegations, Senator Bunting said gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence appear to be growing issues in the JDF.

“Two male soldiers have been slapped with rape charges of a female JDF trainee less than six weeks after the story broke that a woman soldier was being victimised and punished under the Defence Act after ending a sexual relationship with a male officer, whilst the officer’s charges were ‘incomplete’. The military and policy leadership must be proactive in developing a programme to prevent gender discrimination and violence from continuing,” he said. “The public needs to understand the scale of the problem, and to be assured that adequate measures are being taken to address that problem, otherwise, no caring parent could feel comfortable with a daughter joining the JDF.”

Meanwhile, retired JDF Colonel Allan Douglas said the act was unacceptable, frightening, and disappointing, and points to a lack of supervision and poor leadership.

“Up Park Camp is the heart of the JDF… Jamaica’s military base. Very senior officers and soldiers and their families live there. It is very troubling that soldiers could be in possession of presumably service weapons and be so unsupervised that they could have used it to to carry out their alleged criminal act. It points to a lack of supervision and certainly poor leadership.

“What type of ‘soldiers’ could have done what these two did? JNSC [Jamaica National Service Corps] is an excellent Government-conceptualised programme, but what confidence can we now have in it that it will achieve its goals or objectives? It is good that presumably disciplinary action was taken against the two suspects and that they are no longer members of the JDF. It is hoped that there has been a thorough investigation and that corrective measures are put in place to prevent a recurrence,” the retired colonel said.