National Peace Corps Association (facebook.com)

Some that wandered were indeed lost.

*Content warning: Sexual assault, rape, and violence are discussed.

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V10i3 MAR Peace Corps is lying to you
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Narrated by Lushika Preethrajh

The glossy pamphlets and advertisements were everywhere a couple of decades ago. Idealistic young people who dreamed of serving and traveling were entranced by the ideals of the organization. The Peace Corps offered young people an opportunity to live and work in communities overseas, and experience cultures immersively. The Peace Corps mission statement is: “To promote world peace and friendship through community-based development and intercultural understanding.”

Peace Corps’ Facebook page has a pinned video that encapsulates their message perfectly: “With the Peace Corps, you have the chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself. The chance to make [a] difference. Will you take it?”

For over 60 years, the Peace Corps has offered people this idealistic vision. Their YouTube channel is full of videos that make it seem like a wonderful way to spend two or more years. 

Yet many people have returned from their time of service with trauma — and how the organization has responded to them only amplifies the issues. 

“I was recruited to the Peace Corps out of University.
It was made out to be this life-changing adventure, where we would be ambassadors of peace out in other developing countries. 
The reality is different.”

Sara was on the campus of her University when she was recruited to join the Peace Corps. It seemed to be the perfect fit for her — a chance to travel and to help people. 

Part of the Peace Corps training is teaching people about the cultures they will be living in. However, young women like Sara are not given the full picture of what it is like living in countries like the one she went to. Volunteers are not prepared for the way single females are treated in the communities they serve. 

Peace Corps trainees swearing in as volunteers in Madagascar, April 26, 2006.

In 2011, stories of women that were sexually assaulted during their Peace Corps service were reported by CBS news, including the Congressional testimony of Kellie Green, another former Peace Corps volunteer (PCV). After her service, Green was employed by the Peace Corps to help victims of sexual assault. Fourteen years ago, Green testified that the Peace Corps did little to help victims; and in fact, that the organization often blamed the victims for being raped. 

In 2011, CBS reported that the Peace Corps had 8,000 volunteers and trainees working in 77 countries: 

“Peace Corps workers say they aren't told of the risks in those countries, and that even the training videos make rapes seem like the victims’ fault. Between 2000 and 2009, there have been 221 rapes or attempted rapes and 1,078 sexual assaults on Peace Corps volunteers.” 

CBS continued to investigate and report the issues in the Peace Corps, including a story in 2015 in which they detailed that one in five female volunteers in the Peace Corps report being sexually assaulted, and that the leadership often blames the women for their assaults. Sara said that was exactly her experience. 

“During training, we were shown the generic training video that was standard at the time. One of the Peace Corps volunteers in the video talked about how she was sexually assaulted, but that it was her fault for getting into the situation to begin with.”

That video, called “Serving Safely”, was shown to every PCV upon entering their country of service at the time. After the 2011 Congressional hearings and multiple complaints, the agency pulled the video from their service training.

Peace Corps (facebook.com)

The Women’s Congressional Policy Institute also published an article in 2011 detailing accounts of former PCVs that were raped while serving. The Director of the Peace Corp who served from 2009–2012, Aaron Williams, acknowledged that the Peace Corps needed to do better, stating:

“We issued Peace Corps’ Commitment to Sexual Assault Victims, a set of core principles to ensure we provide timely, effective, and compassionate support to victims of sexual assault. The commitment makes clear that all volunteers must be treated with dignity and respect, and that no one deserves to be a victim of a sexual assault.”

The Peace Corps has actually had a Sexual Assault Working Group since 2008, and according to Williams, it “includes former Peace Corps volunteers and survivors of rape and sexual assault, as well as staff with expertise in trauma response. The Sexual Assault Working Group has examined best practices in the field and reached out to experts within and outside of government.”

But Sara said that the Peace Corps did not follow their own guidelines, and did not treat her with dignity or respect. Like so many other PCVs, she was sexually assaulted, and no one was held accountable. 

"During my service, I was raped, and at the time, I had no idea how common that was. It makes sense, though... women are placed, completely alone, into communities where the culture is VERY misogynistic and sexist. In my country — especially the rural pueblo where I lived — women lived at home until they were married, then lived with their husbands. Period. 
No woman lived ALONE... unless she was a prostitute. I learned after a few months that my neighbors were gossipping about me.”

When Sara was raped, she went to the capital, where the Peace Corps headquarters was located, to see the Peace Corps doctor. She was scared about HIV, since she was posted in a country where rates of HIV are very high.

The doctor seemed very nice at first, and she talked to me about what I should do next. But she urged me not to report the rape, and gave a lot of reasons, including how awful the jails are in [that country], and how that culture thinks of sex differently, and they probably don’t see it as rape… even though I fought back so hard.

She told me they could move me out and have me live in the capital, where the people were more modern in their thinking.

According to CBS in 2015, over the course of two years, over 500 people told the Peace Corps they were sexually assaulted, and the Peace Corps responded with threats of firing. 

They said they would have to ‘medically separate’ me [a term for terminating service] unless I moved to the capital. It felt like an ultimatum… keep quiet or get fired. I didn’t even get any counseling. The whole thing was very hush-hush.
So, that's what I did. I just got transferred and didn't say anything. 

Sara's service ended in 2011 and she returned to the U.S. That’s when she learned of the congressional hearings led by Kellie Greene, another former PCV that was raped during her service and urged not to report it. 

It was too late for me to do anything to help by the time I learned about it, but at least I knew I wasn't alone.
It REALLY upset me, though, that the Peace Corps' response [to allegations of sexual assault] included the number of reports they received from PCVs. It sounded like they were bragging about how low the numbers were, when it was obvious that they were severely under-reported. 

THEIR OWN DOCTORS told us not to report our rapes and sexual assaults, and then Peace Corps used the numbers of reports as if to say that those incidents were rare.

They are not.

Photo by B Kavanaugh on Unsplash

Sue Castle, whose son Nicholas tragically died during his Peace Corps service in 2013, told us in an interview that she agrees that the Peace Corps’ response to victims is grossly inadequate, and that discouraging victims to report the crimes done to them hurts everyone.

They don’t want it reported, because it makes them look bad. But when they cover it up, it covers up the cause of the behavior in the first place. So the behaviors are given a green light, and then they continue.

Castle and her husband have done advocacy work since the death of their son, including working with the National Peace Corps Association and attending The Day of Advocacy on the Hill, where they meet with congresspeople to talk about improvements the Peace Corps needs to implement. They want to make sure the Peace Corps is protecting their volunteers. 

And when the agency suppresses the voices of victims, it only adds to the harm they experience, Castle said. “When you discourage a victim to come forward, you’re causing them additional trauma.”

Many PCV victims of violence, especially sexual violence, have reported feeling shame, embarrassment, and guilt, which keeps them from talking about what happened to them. And many of them, including Sara, feel that the treatment they received from the Peace Corps was callous and inadequate.

There is also a large amount of pushback on PCVs (and others) who talk about their negative experiences in the Peace Corps. Elizabeth Z. Johnk’s Master’s Thesis entitled “Peace Corps culture and the language of violence” described this phenomenon, saying: “When Greene’s calls for change became ‘too loud,’ ‘too extreme,’ she was deemed hostile and offensive by Peace Corps as a method of institutional self-protection.” 

Castle told us that she and her husband never wanted to go public with the story of their son’s preventable death — the New York Times reported that the Peace Corps’ own inspector general blamed their medical professionals for “medical acts of both omission and commission” — but the Castles realized that they had to talk about what happened in order to bring positive change to the Peace Corps.

Castle said that the pushback can sometimes even come from other volunteers. “I wish everyone would understand,” she said. “We’re not trying to destroy the Peace Corps; we’re trying to improve it.”

Peace Corps (facebook.com)

A 2022 article from Law and Crime stated that even 10 years after President Barack Obama signed a law to protect Peace Corps volunteers from sexual abuse, “the agency is still failing them according to former volunteers, the agency’s first victim advocate, and the congressman who introduced the legislation.”

Congressman Ted Poe and Senator Johnny Isakson introduced the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011, named after Kate Puzey, a Peace Corps volunteer that was murdered during her service after blowing the whistle on a Peace Corps staffer who was sexually assaulting village girls in Benin.  

In addition to the Volunteer Protection Act, there are various groups in the U.S. that have formed to help protect PCVs, such as Peace Corps HR, an Instagram page (which is not affiliated with Peace Corps) dedicated to sharing stories of former Peace Corps volunteers. They “seek to reform Peace Corps” by publishing the stories of PCVs anonymously and actively trying to get Peace Corps to acknowledge their missteps and mistakes. 

Former PCV Casey Katz founded a group called First Response Action, which was successful in getting legislation passed that led to many improvements (one of them being that the Peace Corps no longer uses the “Serving Safely” training video). First Response Action was also able to create an Office of Victim Advocacy within the Peace Corps.

Peace Corps published new policies related to sexual violence after the 2011 hearings; and in 2013, they established a site for volunteers who are sexually assaulted to get help. As part of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program (SAPR) initiative, they also implemented the Peace Corps SAVES Helpline, a 24-hour chat and resource center for people to get help if they are sexually assaulted. 

However, despite these improvements, as late as 2015, Kellie Greene said that she saw similar themes in many of the volunteers she worked with in her time as an advocate in the Peace Corps Office of Victim Advocacy. Too often, Peace Corps staff subject victims of sexual assault to secondary victimization, such as:

  • Delays in receiving support services
  • Discouragement from reporting to local law enforcement
  • Questions/comments meant to excuse the act, such as asking if perhaps it was a cultural misunderstanding
  • Being blamed for ‘causing’ the rape — for example, being questioned about whereabouts, what they were drinking, or how they were dressed
  • Being told that if they needed additional counseling or care, Peace Corps would terminate their service

Sara experienced all of these points; but at the time, she said she didn’t have the language to describe the Peace Corps’ treatment. 

Many returned PCVs continue to report incidents of sexual assault. In 2021, USA TODAY published an article titled: “Sexual assaults rise as the Peace Corps fails its volunteers”. The next year, Peace Corps published a revision of the original SAPR program “Broadening the Peace Corps' Approach to Sexual Assault Prevention” when it became clear that the current methods were not working. 

And the discrepancy between how many assaults Peace Corps reports and how many are actually happening doesn’t seem to have been solved. At least in their recent Sexual Assault Prevention Strategy and Implementation Plan, Peace Corps has adopted a much more believable ratio of “one in three women” when talking about sexual violence, rather than their earlier spurious claim of the rarity of sexual assault on PCVs in their their response to CBS. This document also addresses the need for Peace Corps staff to improve their responses to PCVs who report assaults.

But Sara doesn’t think they are doing enough.

The root of the problem is that Peace Corps will always prioritize the agency over the volunteers. The most recent past Director, Carol Spahn, has made many statements about the “great strides” Peace Corps has taken in sexual assault prevention. But look at those statements carefully; there is a ‘both sides’ mentality baked in.

Even the official SAPR performance review and report that came out last year used ‘both sides’ language, and clearly prioritized the agency over the volunteers. The very first sentence reads: “Sexual assault stands in direct opposition to the Peace Corps’ mission of promoting world peace and friendship.” And in their Annual Report of Crimes Against Volunteers, Peace Corps suggests that the apparent rise in sexual assaults is merely because of increased reporting stemming from successful implementation of the SAPR program.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad Peace Corps is doing more, now. There at least seems to be more interest in addressing sexual violence, and other types of assault that happen to PCVs. That’s good, obviously. Better. 
But even now, the Peace Corps website has their official response to a CBS report on sexual assault where the whole thing is just defensive. It’s awful. 
It seems like what Peace Corps cares most about is protecting themselves, not protecting us.

Sara pointed specifically to one of the bullet points in the Peace Corps’ official response to the CBS report that reads: 

The vast majority of sexual assaults cited in the survey … are non-aggravated sexual assaults (including attempts). Of all female respondents, 27% experienced a non-aggravated sexual assault, 7% aggravated sexual assault, and 4% rape at some point during their two years of service. 
Sara emphasized again that she and many others she has spoken with were strongly urged not to report. She said it was an “open secret” that the real numbers of rapes were much, much higher.

Georgetown Law Journal published a piece in 2023 titled “‘Under Conditions of Hardship’: The Peace Corps’ Catch-22 for Survivors of Sexual- and Gender-Based Violence” in which E.L. Tremblay summed up the problem: 

Because the agency fails to collect adequate data, it is impossible to determine the precise nature and degree of the problem, but it is likely worse than what annual reports have described as a persistently growing crisis despite twenty years of criticism, activism, and reform efforts. 

Sara said she still believes that Peace Corps does good things in the world. “I’ve seen it. That is one of the major reasons I never came forward with my story before now,” she said. She echoed Sue Castle’s sentiment that she doesn’t want to destroy the Peace Corps; she wants to make it better. But like Castle, Sara also believes that there needs to be a major shift in the agency to prioritize its volunteers’ health and safety.

I mostly want people to know what they’re getting themselves into before they sign up. All the stories and videos make Peace Corps seem like a big adventure… but it’s not safe. Especially for women and female-presenting people. It’s not safe. 
Peace Corps is lying to you.

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