One in five acts of nonfatal violence against women happen in the workplace.

Sexual Violence: An Occupational Hazard — In Iraq and at Home
By Marie Tessier

Jamie Leigh Jones was just 20 in 2005 when she took a leap of faith to work in Iraq for her employer, military contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root, then a subsidiary of Halliburton. She went on a mission she believed in.

Shortly after her arrival in Iraq, however, Jones’ ambitions were dashed in an alleged gang rape by co-workers. Jones’ account of being drugged and raped, then betrayed by her employer and held captive in a shipping container, has shocked Congress and reportedly inspired the Justice Department to reconsider her criminal allegations. More victims are emerging, too. Jones’ story has also intensified an international debate over criminal accountability for what are essentially private soldiers employed by the United States government in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR denies the allegations.

The Jones case is the perfect storm of competing public values. It is a dreadful reflection of a thriving American culture of violence against women. It is one odious long-term consequence of an ill-conceived war in Iraq in an era of troop cutbacks. It illustrates the fate of crime victims in the real world experience of criminal and employment law.

Still, Jones, now 23, is an emblem of a new generation of women who have come of age expecting justice for sexual assault, and willing to tell their families, the media and the world about their exploitation. They intend to hold law enforcement officials and employers accountable for every violation of trust that has followed the crime.

As employment lawyers know, Jamie Leigh Jones is, in the end, one extreme example among thousands of victims of violence whose jobs and careers suffer as a result. Experiences like hers at KBR are the reason that sexual assault is recognized as an occupational safety problem throughout the workforce by the Centers for Disease Control and the Pentagon, for example.

Nearly half of all sexual assault victims are fired or lose their jobs in the year following the assault, according to figures from the feminist law group Legal Momentum. Some states have passed laws to ensure that crime victims have a right to leave work for criminal proceedings or medical care. The far-reaching impact of sexual assault, however, often renders such legal protections meaningless, and few cover civil court proceedings such as seeking protection from abuse.

For the rest of the story, click here. 

Today’s photo of the day shows Jay-Z, who recently resigned from his post as President of Def Jam. Word on the block is that he’ll be following Rick Rubin over to Sony, where he’ll be working on some innovative music delivery projects.

Today’s video of the day deals with the latest round of Chris Stokes rumors. For years, people have suggested that Stokes was engaged in inappropriate relationships with the members of his boy bands. Now, with Raz-B (of B2k) and other members of Stokes’ groups going public, things are about to get ugly. It will be interesting to see how the public discourse around Stokes differs from the one related to R. Kelly.

I reminisce, over, this chick
Colder than a shoulder, a Princess a soldier
Raised in Islamic culture
Sexy as the girl on the Jamaica posters
Met her overseas where there really don’t be no
sistas
Brought her on stage as Bilal sang “Soul Sista”
Them body parts of blood was thicker
Sweet on her tryna make sure it ain’t the liquor
She was with a nigga come to find out
She and sista backstage, I conversation kissed her
Made me forget to remember that I pimp or die
Put the pimpin’ aside I seen Kenya in her eye
Our connection lied in a life before
For us to meet again was divine law
Joe I can’t describe how deep I dug her
Now only in memory can I hug her
I reminisce y’all