At a time when Defence Force Recruitment has rolled out a new series of advertisements showing women in key roles across all the service arms, the latest unpublished data on near-record levels of sex assaults shows the stark reality of life in uniform for women.
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On Saturday, The Canberra Times revealed how only half the reported cases proceed to an investigation, many of the women subjected to sex assault felt they had to abandon their career in the military, and even worse, were forced to sign documents which shifted the blame away from the organisation and its embedded misogynist culture.
Damning comments from victims such as "they said I wouldn't be believed and to move on" is an awful indictment of how badly the ADF manages this issue.
Ten long years ago, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick led a wide-ranging review into the treatment of women at ADFA and the broader defence forces.
"By its nature, the ADF is a workplace involving inherent risks. Experiencing sexual misconduct, harassment, bullying, victimisation and sexual abuse however, should never be one of them," she said.
She arranged for each of the Chiefs of the various services - Army, Navy and Air Force - to personally hear the stories of young women who had been sexually assaulted by their instructors and then having nowhere to go with their complaint, because the next person in the chain of command is the one who violated you.
Her report directly led to the establishment of Sempro, the ADF's Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Office. According to Sempro, more than 50,000 ADF personnel have attended briefings, training sessions and workshops.
The biggest issue faced by Sempro has been in forcing cultural change; getting victims to report.
Within any highly structured operational environment - and especially one like the ADF which preaches that without a fierce team ethos in place, people could die - incident disclosure as serious as a sex assault must tip victims into an awful, turbulent mindset of uncertainty.
From the first days of basic training, young recruits are drilled on the importance of keeping the team fabric together. Combine that with a rigid adherence and respect for the chain of command, and it sets in place the framework of an environment in which speaking out - even on an issue as important as rape - is fraught with doubt.
Ten years on from Ms Broderick's report, Sempro still doesn't even make mention of the word "under-reporting". It's time the ADF acknowledged the hidden trauma that its wallpapered system ignores.
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