Excerpt of Article on USAToday.com
In April 2016, I was sexually assaulted on an overnight flight.
I awoke to a male passenger grabbing my crotch repeatedly. He hit and blocked me as I yelled “no,” slapped his hands and scrambled to get away and alert the crew. Despite my efforts, and to my shock, no action was taken by the airline to identify the attacker or report the incident to authorities. In the weeks that followed, my shock turned to anger and then to action as I discovered the gaps in awareness, training and data.
As a result of my experience, I am in an ongoing lawsuit with the airline. But it isn’t enough to work for justice for myself. We need industry standards to train airline staff and standardized ways to report and address instances of sexual assault in the skies.
I can’t provide exact numbers on how often assaults occur at 37,000 feet, and neither can airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FBI, or anyone else — that’s a problem. The numbers we do have should be more than enough to spur real action, though.
Read the full article on USAToday.com
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