GAO: SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT: Guidance Needed to Ensure Consistent Tracking, Response, and Training for DOD Civilians
Sexual harassment and assault in the workplace can cause long-term trauma for victims and may affect the Department of Defense's more than 900,000 federal civilian employees.
DOD [Department of Defense] estimated that about 49,700 of its civilian employees experienced sexual harassment and about 2,500 experienced work-related sexual assault in FY2018, but it does not fully track reports of these behaviors. Also, civilian employees may not have access to DOD-provided reporting and support services available to servicemembers.
Our 19 recommendations include tracking civilian sexual harassment and assault incidents and expanding access to reporting and support services.
What GAO Found
The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken steps to track reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault involving its federal civilian employees, but its visibility over both types of incidents is hindered by guidance and information-sharing challenges. While employees may not report all incidents for a variety of reasons, DOD also lacks visibility over those incidents that have been reported. For example, from fiscal years 2015 through 2019, DOD recorded 370 civilian employees as victims of sexual assault and 199 civilian employees as alleged offenders. However, these data do not include all incidents of sexual assault reported over this time period. Specifically, based on DOD guidance, examples of incidents that could be excluded from these data include those involving civilian employee victims (1) occurring in the continental United States, (2) employed by DOD components other than the military services, such as defense agencies, and (3) who are also military dependents. Without guidance that addresses these areas, DOD does not know the extent to which its civilian workforce has reported work-related sexual assault worldwide.
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