The Peace Corps Has a Sexual Assault Crisis and Congress Has Let It Continue for Decades

The Peace Corps was founded on one of America's most idealistic impulses the belief that young Americans, sent abroad in service, could help build a better world. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have served with genuine dedication, courage, and sacrifice. That history deserves respect.

But respect for the mission does not require silence about the institution's failures. And the failure we are talking about here is not a management problem or a budget shortfall. It is a decades long pattern of placing female volunteers in dangerous environments, failing to protect them from sexual assault, and then retaliating against or ignoring those who came forward.

Over 350 rapes and attempted rapes of female Peace Corps volunteers have been reported since 2009 alone. That number almost certainly understates the true scope because of documented underreporting and retaliation against survivors. This is a moral crisis, not an administrative inconvenience and Congress has known about it for years.

The Case That Should Have Changed Everything

Kate Puzey was a 24 year old Peace Corps volunteer serving in Benin, West Africa. She discovered that a local staff member was sexually abusing young girls in the village where she worked. She reported it to Peace Corps officials confidentially. The Peace Corps shared her identity with the accused. He had her murdered.

Her death was not just a tragedy. It was the direct consequence of an institutional failure a failure to protect the identity of a woman who trusted the organization with her safety. Kate Puzey did the right thing. The Peace Corps got her killed.

In 2011, Congress passed the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act, which required the agency to improve how it handles sexual assault reports, provide better medical and legal support to survivors, and develop safety protocols for volunteers. It was a meaningful response to an inexcusable failure.

More than a decade later, independent audits and survivor testimony confirm that many of those safety protocols remain broken or unenforced. The culture of institutional self protection that got Kate Puzey killed has not been fundamentally changed. It has been managed, minimized, and papered over with reports that rarely result in accountability.

That is not reform. That is the appearance of reform.

What the Record Shows

The documented failures of the Peace Corps on sexual assault are not disputed they are a matter of congressional record, Inspector General findings, and survivor testimony. The pattern includes:

Volunteers placed in high risk environments despite prior warnings and documented incident histories in those locations
Systemic underreporting driven by pressure on survivors to stay quiet and by fear of retaliation from Peace Corps staff
Inadequate medical and psychological support for survivors after assaults, including in some cases active discouragement from seeking help outside the organization
Retaliation against volunteers who reported assaults, including early termination of service, loss of benefits, and informal pressure campaigns
Failure to share safety information with incoming volunteers about known risks in specific regions or communities where prior assaults had occurred
Institutional resistance to external oversight, including delayed and incomplete responses to Inspector General investigations and congressional inquiries

These are not allegations from a single source. They are findings from Congress, from the Peace Corps' own Office of Inspector General, from survivor advocacy groups, and from journalists who have covered this issue in depth for more than fifteen years.

The Kincaid Position: Reform With a Hard Deadline or Sunset

I believe in giving institutions a genuine opportunity to reform. I also believe that opportunity cannot be open ended not when women are being sexually assaulted while serving their country abroad, and not when fifteen years of promised reforms have produced more paperwork than change.

My position is straightforward the Peace Corps must undergo a comprehensive, externally audited reform process with a hard deadline and measurable outcomes. If it cannot demonstrate genuine, verifiable improvement within that window not more promises, not more reports, but actual measurable results then Congress must seriously consider sunsetting the agency and redirecting its resources.

The Peace Corps receives approximately $450 million per year in federal funding. Those are taxpayer dollars. The American people have the right to demand that every dollar of that funding goes toward an institution that can demonstrate it protects the people who serve under its name.

What Real Reform Looks Like

If the Peace Corps is to continue, Congress must impose the following requirements not as recommendations, but as binding conditions of continued federal funding:

1. Independent External Oversight Not Self Policing

All sexual assault reports must be handled by an independent body completely separate from Peace Corps leadership, with no institutional interest in protecting the agency's reputation. The current system, in which the Peace Corps investigates itself, is structurally incapable of producing accountability.

2. Mandatory Pre-Deployment Safety Assessment and Disclosure

Every volunteer must receive a full, honest briefing on the documented safety history of their assigned region before they deploy including prior incidents of sexual assault, known risk factors, and realistic safety protocols. Volunteers cannot make informed decisions if the agency withholds material safety information.

3. Zero Tolerance for Retaliation With Real Consequences

Any Peace Corps staff member who retaliates against a volunteer for reporting a sexual assault must be immediately terminated and referred to the Department of Justice for investigation. Retaliation is not a personnel matter. It is a federal offense when it involves the suppression of a civil rights complaint, and it must be treated as one.

4. Comprehensive Medical and Legal Support No Exceptions

Every volunteer who reports a sexual assault must have immediate access to trauma informed medical care, legal counsel independent of Peace Corps attorneys, and mental health services. Survivors must never again be steered toward organizational damage control rather than toward the help they need.

5. Public Annual Reporting With Verified Data

Congress must require the Peace Corps to publish an annual report verified by the Inspector General documenting every reported sexual assault, every investigation outcome, every instance of retaliation investigated, and every case of pre-deployment safety information that was withheld or incomplete. This data must be public, searchable, and comparable year over year.

6. A Binding Three Year Reform Timeline With Sunset Trigger

Congress must establish a three year reform window with specific, measurable benchmarks. If the Peace Corps fails to meet those benchmarks as verified by an independent external auditor Congress must vote on whether to continue the agency's funding. This is not a threat. It is an accountability mechanism that should have been in place twenty years ago.

Honoring Kate Puzey

Kate Puzey trusted the Peace Corps. She reported abuse because she believed in the mission and because she could not stay silent while children were being harmed. The Peace Corps responded by getting her killed.

The law that bears her name was a meaningful first step. But a first step taken in 2011 that has produced insufficient results by 2025 is not a success. It is a prolonged failure dressed in the language of reform.

The best way to honor Kate Puzey is not to name legislation after her and move on. It is to build a system that would have protected her and that will protect every volunteer who comes after her. That work is not finished. It has barely begun.

What This Campaign Stands For

The Women's Safety and Fairness Agenda of this campaign is not limited to domestic policy. American women serving their country abroad deserve the same protection, the same dignity, and the same legal recourse as women at home. The fact that they are volunteers in a foreign country does not reduce the government's obligation to keep them safe.

If elected to Congress, I will push for the reform agenda outlined above from the first day of my term. I will use my seat on whatever committee has jurisdiction over the Peace Corps to demand verified accountability not more promises, not more reports, not more years of waiting.

The Peace Corps can still be what it was meant to be. But it will not get there without Congress demanding it. And Congress will not demand it without members willing to say plainly what has gone wrong and what must change.

That is what this post is. That is what this campaign is.

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Kincaid is a moderate, common-sense Democrat and official candidate for Congress in Washington's 1st Congressional District. The campaign is focused on practical solutions for public safety, healthcare, economic fairness, and the protection of women's rights at home and abroad.

Paid for by Kincaid for Congress.

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