Virginia State Senate to Take Up Military Sexual Abuse Bill Championed by Local Woman
Jean Ibanez Payne worked on the bill, which passed the House of Delegates last week, with Delegate Josh Cole.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Jean Ibanez Payne served in the U.S. Navy for 4.5 years, and during that time, she experienced unwanted sexual contact, abuse, assault, and harassment more than 20 times.
She was in her late teens and early 20s and said that when she tried to report the abuse, she was not listened to or believed. No one responsible was held to account, and when Payne left military service, she carried the trauma with her.
“I literally battled the trauma for 20 years in silence,” Payne said this week.
She is determined to ensure that no one else has to suffer what she did.
A bill that Payne, who lives in Fredericksburg, helped write with Delegate Joshua Cole, which passed the House of Delegates this week by a vote of 93-to-3, would take strides towards ensuring that the military is held accountable for acts of sexual violence by establishing the Sexual Offense Prevention and Response Program within the state Department of Military Affairs.
The program would perform advocacy services and help survivors make reports against members of the Virginia military forces—defined in the bill as the Virginia National Guard and the Virginia Defense Force. It would also direct the commander of the National Guard to submit an annual report to the Governor and the General Assembly, providing “statistical information about” restricted and unrestricted reports of sexual abuse.
HB 2520 is now before the Senate Committee on General Laws and Technology, and Payne hopes it will soon hit Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk.
The bill will “create more accountability, transparency, and oversight,” Payne said.
“Some in the military will say we have this at the federal level, so we don’t need it,” she continued. “The reality is the [U.S. Department of Defense] is underreporting sexual abuse.”
According to an August 2024 report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, which Payne cited, “sexual assault prevalence in the military is likely two to four times higher than official government estimations.” On average, 24% of active-duty women and 1.9% of active-duty men have experienced sexual assault, and minorities of gender and race are at a greater risk, according to the report.
Payne said she tried burying the trauma of her abuse, but it manifested as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and fibromyalgia, which left her in physical pain.
“My son, who is now 14, when I ask him what he remembers of me from when he was little, he says, ‘All I remember is you being in pain and not being able to get up the stairs,’” she said.
In late 2022, Payne said, she came to a realization that, “Either I am going to [get better] or I’m going to commit suicide, because I couldn’t keep living that way.”
She sat down and started to write about her experience, thousands of words flowing out in the span of a week. That turned into her book, Reclaim Your Worth, which has gained her a following of fellow survivors who urged her to continue speaking out.
Inspired by a bill that passed in Texas in 2021, which created a state sexual prevention and response program for the Texas Military Department, Payne reached out to her delegate about putting forward similar legislation in Virginia.
“It’s been a real collaboration and something Delegate Cole is passionate about,” Payne said.
She expects the bill to come up for a vote by the full Senate in a few days and has been tagging state Senators and the Governor in social media posts, asking them to support and fund it.
“Sexual abuse in the military needs to be addressed,” Payne said. “It’s a mission readiness issue for our troops. A warfighting issue.”
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