Sharp Program to Prevent Sexual Harassment

SHARP is a program that helps prevent incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault. The mission of every soldier in the Army is to ensure that everyone respects everyone at all times under any circumstances. SHARP is also a program within the military that attempts to mitigate sexual harassment to the best of its abilities. However, it is still a major concern within the army because it is something that happens to be a reoccurring issue. Although this particular program is implemented within the Army, sexual harassment is still a reoccurring issue. It is already difficult enough being in the Military but even more so if someone becomes victim to sexual harassment. I feel that SHARP is a great program with good intentions however I feel like it is not taken very seriously because it is not something that is regularly enforced.

In fact, I have seen it where instead of helping the victim for what has happened to them, the soldiers around them including the leaders make them feel ashamed for standing up for what happened. This creates a toxic work environment for those soldiers and makes them feel unmotivated to even be at work let alone be in the Army. At that point what leaders fail to realize is that by them discrediting them or out casting them because of the incident that happened they just showed the rest of the soldiers that if that were to happen to any of them its best not to say anything because then they are going to be treated differently and maybe even frowned upon for snitching. It is a shame to see this happening in the ranks of our leaders let alone the lower enlisted. But how can we expect the junior enlisted to abide by certain rules if we have leaders that cannot lead by example.

Many people that I encounter join the Army because of fellowship that they wanted to feel within their unit. When we have issues like this those, we as leaders are still not able to ensure that it does not occur we should ask our self what we could do better. At this point, it is not a matter of what rank they are, who they know or how well they work. It is about doing the right thing following our Army values, and our morals as human beings. If we let one person get away with it regardless of rank or whom they know, then we are telling everyone else that it is okay for them to do it. Although we want to complain, as to why this issue is a reoccurring. We are doing it to our self, self-harming the Army of individuals who should not get away with sexual harassment.

We train to lead and lead to train, but how we can be those leaders if we are still allowing this to happen within our ranks, our companies our units. As soldiers, we should all be looking out for one another not harassing each other. Especially given the fact that if we were in a combat situation how are we suppose to be able to depend on one another if that trust has been broken prior to that incident. If soldier cannot trust the individual directly beside them in a combat situation, the fight has already been lost. We are all brothers and sisters within the army its time we start acting accordingly and begin holding each other accountable for our actions.

SHARP, the Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program, is meant to curb and avoid any sexual assault before they take place. Preventing sexual harassment and assaults is very important to enhance military readiness and promote unit cohesion. Despite effective policies in SHARP, incidents of sexual assault and sexual violence are on the rise. It is essential to accentuate the urgency of the issue and change the Army’s culture to curb sexual harassment and assault.