Archive - December 1, 2015

How Peace Corps Handled My Sexual Assault My name is Cait Hakala and I’m a proud native of Tinley Park, Illinois. I graduated with a B.A. in Comparative Literary Studies and a minor in Spanish from Northwestern University in June of 2013. I joined the Peace Corps and began serving as a Secondary Education English teacher in a public high school in East Java in March 2014. A misleading and downright irresponsible article posted on November 30th by CBS News concerning Peace Corps’ response to sexual assaults requires my response. You can read that article here. The author lumps together three very different issues: the question of in-country staff misconduct against host country nationals and a narrative of the termination of a victims’ advocate are sprinkled with tales of horror from PCVs who were assaulted in an attempt to reduce Peace Corps to just as hapless as it is villainous when it comes to dealing with sexual assault. I have absolutely no comment on or . . .