Justice for Vanessa Guillen

Vanessa Guillen, a 20 year old Army Specialist stationed on Fort Hood Army Base, was murdered in her workspace by another soldier in April of 2020. Specialist Guillen had confided to her family that she was being sexually harrassed but did not report her case due to fear of retaliation. Had she been able to seek the support of her chain of command, her life might have been saved. This horrific crime is emblematic of the failure of the US military's Sexual Harassment and Assault Response Program known as SHARP. 

As veterans we are dedicated to protecting our troops from all threats, including abusers in the ranks, and we unequivocally support this legislation. Join us to demand that Congress pass the I am Vanessa Guillen Act to reform the military by taking the following concrete measures:

• Move prosecution decisions on sexual assault and sexual  harassment cases outside of the chain of command to an Office of the  Chief Prosecutor within each military service;
• Create a standalone military offense for sexual harassment;
• Establish trained sexual harassment investigators who are outside of the chain of command of the complainant and the accused;
• Create a confidential reporting process for sexual harassment that is integrated with DoD’s Catch a Serial Offender database;
• Require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate  the military’s procedures for finding missing servicemembers and compare  with procedures used by civilian law enforcement and best practices;
• Require both DoD and GAO to conduct separate evaluations of the  military services’ Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention  (SHARP) programs; and
• Establish a process by which servicemembers can make claims for  negligence and seek compensatory damages against DoD in the case of  sexual assault or sexual harassment.

Details of the march will be coming out soon, so please follow the event facebook page to stay updated.