More than 200 women who currently work or previously worked in national security have signed onto an open letter to call attention to sexual harassment.
The letter, titled #metoonatsec, was signed by at least 220 women who worked in various capacities in the national security sector, including at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and USAID. Signatories include former and current diplomats, foreign service officers, and service members.
“This is not just a problem in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, newsrooms or Congress. It is everywhere,” the letter states, according to Time. “These abuses are born of imbalances of power and environments that permit such practices while silencing and shaming their survivors.”
The open letter takes its name from the popular #MeToo movement that spread in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.
Since the accusations against Weinstein were unveiled, a number of women, including in the media and in Congress, have come forward to share their own stories of sexual harassment.
According to Time, retired Ambassador Nina Hachigian and former State Department official Jenna Ben-Yehuda began circulating the letter among their networks last week.
“Assault and harassment are just as much as a problem for women working on the night-shift cleaning offices as it is for diplomats,” Hachigian told Time.
The federal agencies named in the #metoonatsec letter have sexual harassment policies on the books, but the letter states that such policies are “weak, under enforced, and can favor perpetrators.”
“The existence of policies, even good ones, is not enough,” the letter said.
In addition to raising awareness of sexual harassment within the national security community, the open letter also called for reforms to the process for reporting sexual harassment within the federal government, the intelligence community, armed forces, and private sector. Such changes proposed include creating “multiple, clear, private channels to report abuse without fear of retribution,” and mandatory training for employees.
The signers of the #metoonatsec letter also said women who leave the federal service should participate in mandatory exit interviews, and called for “clear leadership from the very top that these behaviors are unacceptable.”
The letter proposed an external mechanism to collect data on claims of sexual misconduct, as well as a place where those claims can be published anonymously.
“We are proud to have served our nation and to have safeguarded its ideals, and we are proud to have worked alongside the talented and dedicated men and women who make up America’s national security workforce,” the signers said. “Imagine what more we could achieve together if we took steps to ensure women could work free from fear and confident that their gender will not affect their opportunities.”
