SHARP- personal courage
Recently, in Dubai, a Norwegian woman who reported that she had been raped by a peer while on a business trip was sentenced to jail. It was determined to be illegal that she had sex outside of her marriage due to the rape. often are not changed easily, and, in the case of the Norwegian woman’s arrest, change was somewhat forced when the world’s opinion resulted in a pardon of her prison sentence. In the Army today we are also working towards a cultural change in how crimes of sexual harassment and assault are viewed by our organization. Usually a value system can be impacted positively by education and the resulting knowledge that can shape a new way of thinking that produces a change of behavior. Whatever type of behavioral change a person or group of people is trying to in?uence, the catalyst for change has to be a shared set of values. Values that we all agree on point us in a direction of living that we think is moral. Our advantage in making cultural change in the way we deal with sexual harassment and sexual assault is going to have to be rooted in the Culture plays an important role in how we think and react to situations in our own lives and in the world as a whole. At ?rst, jailing the Norwegian woman for 16 months must have seemed to be the logical and correct way for the Dubai judicial system to have dealt with this crime. Culture can be described as a community’s shared beliefs based on the social norms and attitudes within a society. The way one group of people deals with a problem may be very different then the way another group deals with a similar problem or legal issue. Customary beliefs practice of our shared values. The Army values set not only a standard to guide us as we move forward as an organization, they challenge us to make the dif?cult changes. Personal Courage; living the Army Values does not allow us to stand by as one of our members is being assaulted. It does not allow us to blame the victim, rather courage requires us to step up to the problem and do something. We can wait for world opinion to force a change, much like it did in the Dubai case, or we can lead the way. All of us have to ask ourselves, if I come across an instance of sexual harassment or sexual assault, do I have the personal courage to stand up and do something about it?
MNBG-E Victim Advocate/SHARP Specialist 1st Lt. Danielle E. Carlsen
PG 14