Four years ago, a Peace Corps volunteer named Erin Bingham was raped in Bolivia. Within hours, agent Julie De Mello was on an airplane from Washington to meet the victim. De Mello, employed by the Peace Corps inspector general as a senior federal agent investigating crimes against volunteers, worked with the 23-year-old victim to sketch the attacker. De Mello went with Bingham to a police lineup, hired a lawyer to represent her, and worked with local police to track down witnesses. De Mello believes her advocacy helped convict the rapist in 2008. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
As profiled by Lisa Rein of the Washington Post, today's Peace Corps response would be a much different story. A Peace Corps volunteer who is the victim of a violent crime is now much less likely to get the necessary support from the U.S. government. De Mello herself left the Peace Corps three years ago, after the agency grounded her and the four other investigators who traveled the world helping victimized volunteers.
What happened? The Peace Corps in 2008 moved the responsibility for supporting volunteers and working with local police from experienced agents to its own in-country staffers, most of whom have little or no law enforcement training. After the change, the rate of prosecutions in sex crimes committed against volunteers has dropped. Despite that fact, Peace Corps officials claim the new system is working, and maintain that the decision to move crime response to local personnel “was made to ensure a proper alignment of functions." (whatever that means!)
Victims and critics say the change was among many missteps the Peace Corps has made in protecting its 8,655 volunteers and trainees. The Peace Corpos has come under fire in recent months for its handling of sexual assaults and the death of a volunteer in West Africa. The young woman, Kate Puzey, was killed days after she told Peace Corps staff that a fellow teacher was molesting students.
Following that incident, Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams acknowledged problems and promised changes at a congressional hearing. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), chief House sponsor of a bill that would force the Peace Corps to give sexual assault victims more support, said in an interview that he did not know the Peace Corps had shifted responsibility for crime investigations to in-country personnel. “It would seem to me that in criminal cases, you need trained officers responding rather than people who have other duties,” he said.
Former agents and inspectors general at the Peace Corps said they believe that shifting responsibility to the security staff lessened the chances that crimes will be solved.
Peace Corps volunteers always have faced dangers abroad. Volunteers reported more than 1,000 rapes, attempted rapes and sexual assaults from 2000 to 2010, statistics show. Because many crimes go unreported, Peace Corps officials believe the real numbers are higher.
Peace Corps volunteers who become crime victims are now often left to their own devices, forced to deal with police officers who are overloaded with work and undertrained, and without experienced representation, usually get no special treatment. The resulting drop in sexual assault cases that result in prosecutions — from about 60 percent to 46 percent (according to figures provided to a congressional committee) underscores what critics call a serious step back for Peace Corps volunteers.
Volunteers and their families have continued to complain about the problems dealing with local police forces, and some believe the decision to rely on in-country security staffs has seriously hampered their quests for justice.
According to Erin Bingham, her case would have languished without the involvement of a trained investigator. Prosecutors in the small city where she was attacked had never tried someone for rape — let alone used DNA evidence in court. “Julie was so experienced,” Bingham said. “She fought so hard for me in all aspects.”
Maybe the Peace Corps should fight a little bit harder for its own volunteers.
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