Military Rape Crisis Center

Attention Rapists: You’ve Met Your Match

From Steubenville, Ohio, to Washington, D.C., from city courts to Twitter feeds, a new generation of women are taking the fight for justice into their own hands. Let their total fearlessness inspire you….

That outrage is moving many women to action. After Panayiota Bertzikis, 31, reported being assaulted by a fellow Coast Guard member in 2006, she was furious that he wasn’t court-martialed and that, instead, superiors made her feel guilty. “Why would I be ashamed?” she asks. “It’s my rapist who should be ashamed.” She joined a class-action lawsuit, alleging that officers mishandled her case, and, from her barracks, founded the Military Rape Crisis Center. The snowball effect she created helped pressure Congress to hold hearings this year on military sexual assault; President Obama himself expressed outrage, saying, “I have no tolerance for this.”

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