Somethings are hard to do, but I cannot let this one go unremarked.
Let me first of all commend (yes, commend, you read that right) the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a body I've frequently held in the deepest disrepute, for holding a hearing this week on the Peace Corps at 50, and mostly concerned with the conduct of the Peace Corps regarding the safety of volunteers overseas. My praise, however isn't unqualified, for the hearing was prompted by a story which appeared from 20/20 about the criminally shabby treatment of rape victims by the Peace Corps:
A Peace Corps volunteer who says she became pregnant after a Peace Corps employee raped her alleges that Peace Corps officials forced her to make a choice: get an abortion or quit the organization."I was not pro-choice until that moment," said Carol Clark, now a schoolteacher in North Carolina, who says she was devastated that the organization she trusted treated her so callously.
Clark says she has come forward to tell her story after more than 25 years because of an ABC News "20/20" report about former Peace Corps volunteers who allege that they were mistreated by the Peace Corps after they were victims of sexual assault while serving overseas.
Witness testimony details rape victims being abandoned, mistreated by supposed care providers and told to keep quiet about their experiences while serving as Peace Corps volunteers.
Evidently, this has been standard Peace Corps practice for decades and like I said, criminal. Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams ought to lose his post in disgrace for not addressing this ongoing situation, but committee chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (told you this was hard) did the right thing by holding a full committee hearing on the subject.
Another prized American institution shows rot at the core, so let's hope the needed reform results.