大象传媒

Warning: Some viewers may find the content of this video distressing.

In an exclusive interview with Emma Barnett, one female former member of the Royal Navy has opened up to 大象传媒 Radio 4鈥檚 Woman鈥檚 Hour and spoken for the first time about the sexual abuse and harassment she says she experienced during her 20 years of service.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that she was raped while working on a Royal Navy ship. She also says that when she found out she was pregnant, a senior colleague suggested an appointment could be made for her to have an abortion. In other incidents, she says that a colleague put his penis on her shoulder while she was sitting at her desk.

In recent weeks, there have been several serious allegations in the media about the treatment of women in the Royal Navy. The woman Emma has interviewed hopes that by speaking up about her experiences, other women in the military won鈥檛 go through the same things.

It鈥檚 an extraordinary insight into the experiences of some women inside our Royal Navy.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace sent us these words about the interview: 鈥淚 am very serious about tackling this issue. I would also say that the military I left 25 years ago is a very different Armed Forces and I would challenge the assertion that the reforms we are making aren鈥檛 changing things. We are removing service complaints from the chain of command, investing in a new serious crime unit across all services, linking poor responses by commanders to their careers, taking fast administrative action to remove people when required, and ensuring a stricter code of Crown Prosecution Service or Service Prosecuting Authority trial paths than ever before.

"Much of Sarah Atherton鈥檚 report is being implemented and a lot of the serving personnel I speak to, like the Servicewomen鈥檚 Network, agree that things are improving. Things are changing and many women serving today would say they are, but there are challenges as there are in the civilian world so please don鈥檛 judge us on historical events that happened long before both of us were doing the jobs we are now doing today.鈥�

You can listen to the full interview on Woman's Hour on 大象传媒 Sounds - it鈥檚 the 10 November episode.

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