By Military Woman
Question: I have heard a lot about “sexual misconduct” in the military but not very much about stalking. Is stalking a problem for military women?
Answer. First, let’s agree on what stalking is. Stalking is when a person, who has no legal reason to, continues to contact, follow, talk to, or send things to you, or people closely connected to you, despite repeated requests for them to stop.
Stalking is categorized as a type of “criminal harassment” in the Criminal Code of Canada. Stalking can be linked with other crimes, such as sexual assault, indecent exposure, threats, voyeurism, the sharing of private images without consent and trespassing.
Who stalks? Stalkers can be total strangers or casual acquaintances, but are most likely current or past intimate partners. Women are the stalkers in about 20% of cases, but rarely do these cases end in intimate partner violence (IPV) against men. Unfortunately, the reverse does not hold true. One woman is murdered every six days in Canada by a present or past male partner. Margaret Atwood once observed, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Stalking is a very gendered experience and is therefore considered to be a type of gender-based violence (GBV).
How common is stalking? In North America, between 8 and 19% of civilian women and 2 to 6% of civilian men are estimated to be victims of stalking. These rates in the US veteran population are thought to be doubled, or around 35% for women and 15% for men. The Journal of Interpersonal Violence recently reported even higher stalking rates for current US active duty populations, up to 60% for women and 35% for men.
In the absence of available statistics on Canadian military and veterans, we don’t know if Canadian rates are higher, lower or the same as US rates. We do know that Canadian military women are more likely to have a past or current intimate partner relationship with another military member than a civilian woman would. We do know that having a common military workplace may make it easier for would-be stalkers to access personal information about their current and past military intimate partners. Access to information such as a person’s place of work, home address, schedule and work/social contacts helps stalkers to stalk. We also know that military women have higher separation and divorce rates than civilian women or military men. This is of particular concern when you consider that data from the Canadian general population that suggests a woman in Canada has six times the risk of being killed by a past intimate partner than a present partner.
Reporting stalking is also complicated, especially in a military context where the victim may still fear negative consequences to their own career and/or their previous partner’s career. It’s further complicated if there are any ongoing financial reliances relating to child custody or spousal support payments.
How can you help someone who thinks they may be getting stalked? Believe them. Listen non-judgmentally. Encourage all evidence to be saved and documented (a stalking log is available at www.ncvc.org/src). Ask if they know (or suspect) who their stalker is. Review their perceived risk or threat level and brainstorm how to minimize it. Think about ways to block any ongoing access by the stalker to knowledge about the victim and their family and/or schedules. Develop a safety plan on how to avoid the stalker and how to deal with any unexpected encounters. Research workplace rights and supports including the police, a lawyer, the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre (SMRC), and websites such as YellowManteau.com. Decide when and how to report to authorities.
What to do if you are being stalked now? Step one is to acknowledge the problem. Family, society and even military workplaces can deny, minimize, normalize and/or perpetuate inappropriate relational stalking behaviours. Research your options. Ask for help, third party interventions are often required.
Knowledge and policy gap. Canadian military (and RCMP) women statistics for stalking remains largely unchartered territory. It’s a gap that we look forward to being addressed in this government’s “National Gender Based Violence Plan.”
