US Senate fails to pass military sexual assault reform bill for second year
US President Barack Obama has been criticized for failing to act against military sexual assault after a plan to remove sexual assault cases from the military chain of the command failed to pass the Senate.
For the second year in a row, reform bill proposed by Democrat Senator Kirsten Gillibrand fell short on Tuesday of the 60 votes it needed to pass in the Senate.
"Our sons, our daughters, our husbands, our wives are being betrayed by the greatest military on earth," Gillibrand told her colleagues before the vote.
In spite of bipartisan support for the amendment, it failed by a vote of 50-49. Forty-nine senators opposed the reform bill.
The bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would also have established an independent justice system to handle sexual assault crimes.
In a similar effort last year, the legislation fell five votes short of passage.
Obama "promised he would address this issue" if the issue was not "fixed in a year," said Gillibrand. "Well, a year is long passed and we haven't the changes that we need."
In December 2013, Obama said in a statement that if he did see "the kind of progress I expect” in military sexual assault by the end of 2014, “we will consider additional reforms."
"I expect more leadership," she said. "And I am hopeful for more leadership from the president.”
Despite the continued failure, Gillibrand vowed to continue pushing for the reform, saying it will eventually pass.
"American military, if they do these reforms, will have fewer dangerous criminals and far more heroes," she said before the vote.
"The brave men and women we send to war to keep us safe deserve nothing less than a justice system equal to their sacrifice," she added.
She said reported sexual assaults have increased, and according to a Pentagon survey, 62 percent of victims say they still face professional or social pressure after reporting an assault.
The survey for the US Defense Department released in May found more than 47 percent of sexual assault victims in the military are female, while nearly 53 percent are male.
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