Female Veteran Suicide

A massive study made public on August 4^th by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs shows that a female veteran is several times more likely to commit suicide than a woman who has not served in the military.Many experts also believe that the suicide rate and the high rate of sexual assaults against women in the military are linked. Military sexual trauma, as it is called, is believed to play a major role in the decision for female veterans to commit suicide.For some women, experiences in the military are coupled with sexual trauma experienced as children and teenagers.“Last year there were 26,000 cases of sex abuse in the military,” said Floyd Meshad, president of the National Veterans Foundation. “When you consider the number of women in the military, that seems…to be at an epidemic level.”The VA study examined 55 million veteran records dating from 1979 all the way to 2014. According to a report last year, women suicide rates were as much as 12 times higher than nonveteran women. The new report makes it difficult to compare numbers outright in some places, but claims that overall, veteran women are 2.4 times more likely to commit suicide than nonveterans.

Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Bill Targets VA Services for Women

In July, President Obama signed the Female Veterans Suicide Prevention bill, which moved the VA to action on female veteran suicide by forcing it to identify the most effective suicide prevention programs.However, many female veterans are unwilling to receive treatment at the VA, viewing it as another part of the male-dominated military structure they suffered in.Meshad believed that women-only facilities are needed. A women’s clinic in the Loma Linda, California VA opens soon, hopefully addressing some of the problems and needs of female veterans, including individual and group counseling, and experts on sexual assault and trauma who have dealt specifically with female veterans in the past.