Senate hearing to focus on rapes of contract workers in Iraq

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow titled "Closing Legal Loopholes: Prosecuting Sexual Assaults and Other Violent Crimes Committed Overseas by American Civilians in a Combat Environment."

Representatives of the departments of Justice, State and Defense are scheduled to testify. So is Mary Beth Kineston, a former employee of Houston-based contractor and Halliburton spinoff KBR, who alleges she was sexually assaulted in Iraq by one KBR coworker, groped by another -- and then fired after complaining about the company's treatment of women. Kineston won a small arbitration award from the company for her ordeal.

But others have had a difficult time finding any justice. Among them is "Lisa Smith," the pseudonym for a woman who worked for KBR as a medic and alleges she was drugged and raped by a KBR coworker and a soldier; her harrowing story was recently detailed by reporter Karen Houppert for The Nation. The radio show Democracy Now! interviewed Smith and Houppert today as well as Jamie Leigh Jones, another KBR worker who alleges she was sexually assaulted by fellow employees; Smith says she will also testify as part of tomorrow's hearing, at which she will reveal her true identity.

Labels: contracting, criminal justice, iraq, Jamie Leigh Jones, KBR, rape