Mary
Lauterbach, Mother of U.S. Marine Maria Lauterbach, to Keynote Event, Present
Awards to Reps. Tsongas and Turner, Senators Collins and Kerry
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Service
Women's Action Network (SWAN) announced the keynote speaker and award recipients
for the first gathering of Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine veteran sexual
assault survivors in the nation’s capital, “Truth and Justice: The 2012 Summit
on Military Sexual Violence.”
The Summit, held in Washington, D.C. on
Tuesday, May 8, will provide military sexual assault survivors and their
families the opportunity to share personal experiences with Members of
Congress. The day will begin with remarks from Members of Congress, a veterans
panel on resilience and reintegration, and a law and policy panel on strategies
for system reform.
An awards ceremony will follow, keynoted
by Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Marine Lance Corporal, Maria Lauterbach, who
was 20 years old when she was murdered in 2007 by a fellow Marine accused of
raping her only weeks before. Since her daughter’s death, Mary has been
actively working to increase awareness of sexual assault in the military and to
improve both the care and justice that service members receive when sexually
assaulted.
Following the keynote, The Lauterbach
Award for Truth and Justice, a distinction recognizing sustained commitment to
the elimination of sexual violence in the military, will be presented to Rep.
Niki Tsongas (D-MA), Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Last year, Rep. Tsongas and Rep. Turner introduced the
Defense Sexual Trauma Response Oversight and Good Governance (STRONG) Act,
which then received Senate support from Sen. Collins and Sen. Kerry. Elements
of this legislation were introduced into law through the 2011 National Defense
Authorization Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama last
December. These included key reforms such as expedited base transfers for
sexual assault survivors and retention of evidence in unrestricted sexual
assault investigations for 50 years.
After the awards ceremony, more than 100
survivors participating in the Summit will attend advocacy training and then
mobilize at the U.S. Capitol to share their personal experiences with their own
elected officials. These visits to policymakers will take place one day before
the House Armed Services Committee begins full mark-up of the 2013 National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains additional proposals for
reforming military sexual assault investigations and prosecutions.
For more information on SWAN's
"Truth and Justice: The 2012 Summit on Military Sexual Violence,"
visit www.truthandjusticesummit.org or contact Katy Otto at
katy@servicewomen.org or 240-478-9387.
###
SWAN is a national civil rights organization
founded and led by women veterans. SWAN’s vision is to transform military
culture by securing equal opportunity and the freedom to serve in uniform
without threat of harassment, discrimination, intimidation or assault. SWAN
also seeks to reform veterans' services on a national scale to guarantee equal
access to quality health care, benefits and resources for women veterans and
their families. You can follow Service Women’s Action Network on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/servicewomen, or on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/servicewomen.
Posts
