Legislation Considers Safety of Americans Living Overseas

Infozine.com ^ | 07/30/2011 | Rebecca Koenig

[american_steve]

Peace Corps regional recruiter Jason Beach said the organization has taken recent steps to prevent sexual assaults, including tailoring volunteer training to the cultural norms of each region and encouraging volunteers to report every incident to their supervisors. The program has formed several panels to study sexual assault, hired a victim advocate and established a case tracking system to better serve effected volunteers.

In light of these measures, Charles “Chic” Dambach, a volunteer in Colombia from 1967 to 1969 and former CEO of both the Alliance for Peacebuilding and the National Peace Corps Association, said he did not feel the bill would make a significant difference in volunteers’ safety.

“The Peace Corps is so conscious about this,” he said. “It’s first and foremost in their minds. It makes it an absolute priority.”

Dambach, who now serves as chief of staff for Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., said he never worried for his safety during his time in Colombia, and that life in the U.S. is not necessarily any safer than life abroad.

“Yes things happen, but things happen here,” he said. “A year after I left the Peace Corps, my best friend in the world was murdered in Dallas.”

Dambach and Beach said that there is inherent risk in serving overseas.

“The whole point of the Peace Corps is that you’re out there exposed in the community,” Dambach said.

The Consular Notification Compliance Act, S.1194, would authorize federal courts to review cases of foreign nationals currently on death row in the U.S. who were not told of their right to contact their consulate under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which the U.S. signed in 1963.

[american_steve]

U.S. presidents are not elected with authoritarian powers, as much as they might believe they have once the Oval Office swells their egos. Rivkin states it simply and boldly: Treaties are not self executing, there was no Congressional action, and so presidents can't just enact them on their own. Kill S. 1194

[Parmy]

This is a program that is long overdue for the axe.

[SECURE AMERICA]

said he never worried for his safety during his time in Colombia, and that life in the U.S. is not necessarily any safer than life abroad.

Wow does this guy have his head up his own ass or what!
Try being a Christian or a women in a muslim country. Good luck with that..........

[JoeDetweiler]

An interesting article...

“In 1976, a young Peace Corps worker in Tonga stabbed Deborah Gardner, another volunteer, 22 times, and went free, with the help of the U.S. government. The killer is alive and well and living in New York City.”

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_10403/

[dont_tread_on_malik]

It’s bad enough the states have to fight off federal intrusions. Now the liberals want to bring international interference into how we govern ourselves?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Get rid of the Peace Corps.

They are not a “peace corps.”

From what I have met, they are nothing but a bunch of socialist jerks and who have no understanding about the country or culture to which they have been assigned.

And they leave without having learned anything because their way is the right way.

I can´t stand them.