Nearly three years after Congress passed a law named for a murdered Peace Corps volunteer from Cumming, the organization and its independent watchdog are sparring over how the law wants them to account for sexual assaults.
The months-long dispute spilled into public view with a letter sent Tuesday by 47 inspectors general to key members of Congress claiming stonewalling at the Peace Corps, Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency. The letter alleges interference by the three Obama administration agencies with their offices of inspector general.
In the Peace Corps, the dispute involves the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act, which is named for a 24-year-old Cumming volunteer who was murdered in the west African nation of Benin in 2009 after she reported that a local staffer had been molesting girls in the village.
The law overhauls how the Corps deals with sexual assaults, including a directive for the inspector general to periodically investigate how the Corps is handling the issue. The inspectors general’s letter to Congress states that the Peace Corps “refuses to provide its (Office of Inspector General) with full access to sexual assault records.”
The Peace Corps says it has privacy reasons for doing so. Under a “restricted reporting” standard included in the Puzey law, sexual assault victims can withhold their identities while making reports.
“We are committed to working with the Inspector General to ensure rigorous oversight while protecting the confidentiality and privacy of volunteers who are sexually assaulted,” a Peace Corps spokeswoman wrote in an email.
The Puzey law states that victims’ identities can be revealed to Peace Corps staff, courts and victims’ advocates. While the law does not list the inspector general specifically is entitled to that information, inspectors general routinely deal with non-public information and often consider themselves part of the agency staff.
“Inspector generals run on information,” Brian Miller, former inspector general for the General Services Administration, told Channel 2 Action News. “You deny the information, you’re going to stop the inspector general.”
In May the Peace Corps and the inspector general reached a “memorandum of understanding” about sexual assault reporting allowing the IG access to all information about restricted sexual assault reports except the identity of the victim and “explicit details of the sexual assault.” The inspector general’s office has no outstanding requests for information on sexual assaults, according to the Peace Corps.
Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson was a driving force behind passing the law and is remaining neutral in this dispute.
Isakson spokeswoman Amanda Maddox wrote in an email that the senator “was pleased to learn that the Peace Corps and the Office of Inspector General signed a Memorandum of Understanding to further clarify this issue. Sen. Isakson is hopeful that the two parties will continue to work toward a solution that keeps the safety and privacy of the Peace Corps Volunteers as the paramount concern.”
The Puzey case has been a personal, five-year mission for Isakson. He returned to Benin this year to nudge along the murder prosecution. Five suspects now are being held in separate prisons.
In addition to the Peace Corps allegations, the letter to the top Democrats and Republicans on oversight committees in the U.S. House and Senate states that the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency had withheld documents from their watchdogs. The inspectors general write that such treatment is common throughout the federal government.
“Limiting access in this manner is inconsistent with the IG Act (of 1978, creating the offices), at odds with the independence of Inspectors General, and risks leaving the agencies insulated from scrutiny and unacceptably vulnerable to mismanagement and misconduct – the very problems that our offices were established to review and that the American people expect us to be able to address.”
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