thedrifter
02-14-08, 07:15 PM
Women complain of lack of response from KBR to sexual assault reports
Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 14, 2008
Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed in April 2004, The New York Times reported Wednesday. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.
But not long after the ambush, Kineston told the Times, she was sexually assaulted by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers.
Later, she said, she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in Iraq, she was fired, the Times wrote.
Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but who now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or significant compensation, the paper reported.
Many of the obstacles that have impeded other types of investigations involving contractors, such as shootings involving Blackwater security guards, have made it difficult for the U.S. government to investigate sexual offenses, the Times noted. The military justice system does not apply, and the reach of other American laws on contractors in war zones remains unclear five years after the invasion of Iraq.
“I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for KBR,” Kineston, who won a modest arbitration award, is reported as saying. “At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn’t do anything.”
Ellie
Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 14, 2008
Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio resident who went to Iraq to drive trucks, thought she had endured the worst when her supply convoy was ambushed in April 2004, The New York Times reported Wednesday. After car bombs exploded and insurgents began firing on the road between Baghdad and Balad, she and other military contractors were saved only when Army Black Hawk helicopters arrived.
But not long after the ambush, Kineston told the Times, she was sexually assaulted by another driver, who remained on the job, at least temporarily, even after she reported the episode to KBR, the military contractor that employed the drivers.
Later, she said, she was groped by a second KBR worker. After complaining to the company about the threats and harassments endured by female employees in Iraq, she was fired, the Times wrote.
Kineston is among a number of American women who have reported that they were sexually assaulted by co-workers while working as contractors in Iraq but who now find themselves in legal limbo, unable to seek justice or significant compensation, the paper reported.
Many of the obstacles that have impeded other types of investigations involving contractors, such as shootings involving Blackwater security guards, have made it difficult for the U.S. government to investigate sexual offenses, the Times noted. The military justice system does not apply, and the reach of other American laws on contractors in war zones remains unclear five years after the invasion of Iraq.
“I felt safer on the convoys with the Army than I ever did working for KBR,” Kineston, who won a modest arbitration award, is reported as saying. “At least if you got in trouble on a convoy, you could radio the Army and they would come and help you out. But when I complained to KBR, they didn’t do anything.”
Ellie