Senior female staff report sexual assault and harassment at MoD

Sixty senior women at the UK’s Ministry of Defence have described a “hostile” and “toxic” culture at the department in a letter that alleges sexual assault, harassment and abuse by male colleagues.

- Harry Davies , Dan Sabbagh , Rowena Mason

The letter, seen by the Guardian, was sent last month by a large group of senior civil servants to the MoD’s permanent secretary alongside anonymised testimonies in which women described their personal experiences.

The accounts included claims that women had been “propositioned”, “groped” and “touched repeatedly” by male colleagues at the MoD in a workplace culture the civil servants said was “hostile to women as equal and respected partners”.

In the letter, which is marked “official-sensitive”, the group of “senior civilian women” said their “day-to-day professional lives are made difficult thanks to behaviours that would be considered toxic and inappropriate in public life, but that are tolerated at the MoD”.

“We are spoken over during meetings, we are subject to pejorative language, we receive unwanted attention and face sexual harassment, including intrusive staring, sexualised comments, running commentary about what we wear, how we look, and how we smell,” the group said.

Testimonies included in the letter catalogue a list of alleged incidents at both the MoD’s headquarters in London and overseas bases. The accounts, the majority of which are described as “very recent”, suggest there is an abusive and discriminatory workplace culture at one of the UK government’s largest departments.

The accounts, which the letter said came from “senior civilian women in operational and security roles”, include:

A woman who said she was groped at an MoD social function but was advised against complaining.

A woman on an overseas posting who said she was “touched repeatedly on the lower back and legs by a senior military officer” but the “perpetrator went unpunished”.