Sexual abuse a severe matter

The top men at the Peace Corps and the International Monetary Fund are in the news, and the reason is alleged sexual assault.

Peace Corps chief Aaron S. Williams said in testimony to Congress last week that he was "amazed and shocked" to hear of the many attacks on Corps volunteers, and admitted that the agency had been unresponsive and insensitive.

IMF leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn, meanwhile, has been accused of attempted rape in Manhattan. Strauss-Kahn is innocent unless proven guilty, but the Peace Corps could learn something from how New York City police handled the accusations against him.

Strauss-Kahn is affluent, powerful and well-connected. His accuser is an immigrant who works as a hotel maid. Yet her complaint prompted fast work from detectives, who pulled her alleged assailant from a flight about to depart for Paris on Saturday.

Compare this with the way sexual assault charges have been handled at the Peace Corps. From 2000 to 2009, its volunteers reported 221 rapes or attempted rapes as part of more than 1,000 sexual assaults. Many more attacks are believed unreported. Former volunteers have accused the Corps of insensitivity or indifference, echoing the grim experience of women in the military.

The federal government must take sexual abuse as seriously as the city police did in the Strauss-Kahn case. Doing so might finally make less of it happen.