Multiple US Navy investigations were conducted last year following a string of suicides among the aircraft carrier USS George Washington crew.

The findings uncovered that while parked in Newport News, Virginia, personnel of a firm hired to operate on the ship made sexually provocative comments to female crew members on a regular basis. According to the report, Navy leaders met with Huntington Ingalls Industries-Newport News Shipbuilding executives to "curtail the harassment towards Sailors, to no avail."

According to The Messenger's investigation, an exceptionally high percentage of rank-and-file on board the George Washington and multiple additional carriers - more than half the ships' crews in certain cases - have reported sexual harassment instances.

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Multiple internal polls known as "Defense Organizational Climate Surveys" indicate the scope of the problem aboard six aircraft carriers.

In 2022, 65% of women and 47% of men questioned on the George Washington reported occurrences of sexual harassment, a 10% rise from the previous year. The overall percentage was 51%. The total percentage on the USS Harry S. Truman was 61%, with 76% of women and 57% of males reporting sexually harassing conduct.

A new #Pentagon report highlights the increase of sexual assault in the ranks of the #US army, a trend that's worrying, to say the least, to the government and the military institution. pic.twitter.com/m5ppORXF2B

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) September 11, 2022

Last year in September, a Defense Department survey, which began to collect data in 2015, indicated that nearly 36,000 service members said they had experienced unwanted sexual contact, a sharp increase over the 20,500 victims among active-duty personnel found in 2018, the last time the survey was conducted. 

In April, a Politico report detailed how the CIA is making it difficult for alleged victims to speak to law enforcement.

Attorney Kevin Caroll revealed that since January, at least three female CIA employees have been discouraged from speaking out against the harassment. 

The attorney also revealed that his client has told him that as many as 54 women at the CIA over the past decade have said they have been victims of sexual assault or misconduct by colleagues and that their cases were improperly handled.

The surveys were reviewed by Dr. Joie Acosta, a senior behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation with years of research on sexual assault within the US military.

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According to Acosta, “When you look at what is in some of these reports that you have where sexual harassment behaviors are at 50 or 60 percent, I mean, that is really high."

The numbers also greatly surpass rates within the military. The Pentagon's 2021 Workplace and Gender Relations survey revealed that 29% of women and 6% of males experienced sexual harassment in the armed services.

For all six carriers, the survey results were higher than the military average. The most concerning statistics came from Gerald R. Ford and Harry S. Truman; 76% of women on the Ford and 75% of women on the Truman reported harassment in September 2022 polls. Both aircraft's total rates were above 50%, and both had increased significantly during the previous year.

The Messenger collected survey findings for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS John C. Stennis, and USS George H.W. Bush over a two-year period between 2020 and 2022.

Aircraft carriers among highest-risk workplaces

On the Eisenhower, 48% of crew members reported sexually harassing conduct, down from 60% the previous year - while on two other carriers, the Stennis and the Bush, the rates were almost the same, at 44 and 52%, respectively. Even still, these levels were significantly higher than the military norm.

A RAND Corporation poll of more than 170,000 military members performed in the summer of 2014 found that aircraft carriers in the Navy were among the highest-risk workplaces and that unwanted sexual behaviors were frequently more widespread in all branches of the military at large-scale facilities with larger numbers of junior-ranking troops.

When asked about the climate surveys and how it responded to allegations, the Navy told The Messenger that “leadership at the highest level of the Navy closely reviews results of surveys and reports of harassment are taken with the utmost seriousness. Harassment of any sort is not tolerated in the Navy and those who perpetrate these actions are held accountable.”

The Navy cited follow-up "focus groups" on board Truman and Ford vessels “to further validate the survey findings.” The Navy did not share the results of those findings. 

It also alleged communicating strict guidelines to be enforced in order to "ensure transparency and provide an extra precaution to remove any perception of bias or favoritism in the investigative process.”

The Navy's response to the high numbers of reported harassment was, according to them, due to high participation.

In 2021, a RAND report shed light on how the Defense Department had been incapable of tackling sexual assault prevention within the US military establishment. 

According to Acosta, “They had a sexual assault prevention and response office but in practice, those folks were not doing any primary prevention efforts, it was very much more focused on victims.” 

She believes that more attention should have been placed on training and effective deterrence of those behaviors.

“Prevention takes a long time to work. It’s not like you do it and the next day everything is better,” she explained. “These are complex problems and there’s not a magic bullet that’s going to fix it.”