Survivors of sexual assault and sexual harrasment in the U.S. Coast Guard were refused adequate medical care, according to a federal staffreport released Wednesday.

The report indicates victims continued to experience mistreatment by the Coast Guard after they reported the assaults, and were denied the necessary documentation to access U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs services.

Victims were also refused their own records, impacting their ability to understand what happened to them and to move forward with their lives, according to the report.

One whistleblower told the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), that “Being raped is bad enough. But the institutional betrayal has been more damaging for me. It was the culture.”

The whistleblowers reported lasting struggles with depression, anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other health conditions as a result of trauma stemming from sexual assault and sexual harassment.

“The voices of these whistleblowers make clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Coast Guard are fleet-wide problems, impacting enlisted members and officers just as pervasively as cadets,” Blumenthal wrote in a note from the Chair at the front of the report. “For far too long, Coast Guard survivors have felt unheard and unseen. They have been brushed aside and silenced. This report seeks to redress that harm.”

The report contains testimonies from the more than 80...

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