Sex-Assault Victims Rejected for Disability to Get Review
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Military personnel who were the victims of sexual assault can seek disability pay for the psychiatric trauma even if they didn’t officially report the incident, a U.S. appeals court ruled today.
The decision orders the Department of Veterans Affairs to review the rejected disability requests of two women who said they suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after being assaulted. While acknowledging most victims never report attacks, the agency denied the women disability pay because there was no military record of the assaults supporting the psychiatric diagnoses.