DaytonDailyNews.com

'I was being treated like a worrisome mother'

By Mei-Ling Hopgood
mhopgood@coxnews.com

When Joan Gerring visited her daughter, Judy, in Kazakhstan in October 1999, she became worried.

The young woman who had graduated magna cum laude from Yale University five months before was depressed and spending much of her free time sleeping.

Judy had hoped to use her experience in the central Asian country to jump-start a career in economic development. But instead of working with small businesses, where she might expand on her fluent Russian speaking skills, she ended up primarily teaching English.

She also feared for her safety. The industrial town where she lived, Ekibastuz, had once been home to a Soviet gulag. The stairwells in her apartment were not lighted, drunks would knock on her door at night, and her supervisors were a 33-hour train ride away.

"I knew it was going to be a challenge, and there was going to be poverty," said Judy, now 27. "I was going to be deprived of things, and be far from home. But I didn’t think I would be scared."

Joan, who graduated from Wilbur Wright High School in Dayton and is an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, went straight to the Peace Corps headquarters in the city of Almaty and demanded that the country director, Wiley Williams Jr., visit her daughter. A supervisor eventually did visit Ekibastuz, Judy said, but he scheduled two other site visits in a single eight-hour period. Judy proposed moving to another city and creating a better job for herself, but she said the agency would not let her.

The parents of Peace Corps volunteers hope for the best when their daughters and sons head to third world countries. Many worry and endure long periods without letters or calls. Hardship is part of the Peace Corps experience, they’re told.

But some volunteers and parents have found there’s another side to their Peace Corps experience: a difficult and sometimes impenetrable bureaucracy.

After returning from Kazakhstan, Joan teamed with another mother, Maureen Chemsak, to push for better safety and mental health support for volunteers.

Chemsak, a volunteer in Micronesia from 1969 to 1971, was concerned about the safety of her son, Stephen, who was kicked out of his house in Kazakhstan right before Christmas in 1999, then had to search for his own housing despite knowing very little Russian.

After visiting Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C., Chemsak became frustrated. "We got a lot of nods and a lot of pats on the back and ‘Everything will be OK,’ and that was it," she said.

In February 2000, Gerring and Chemsak both voiced their safety concerns in a meeting with agency officials.

"All those administrators that I encountered would just say, ‘That’s what Peace Corps is about,’ ” Gerring said.

Added Chemsak: "I got the feeling I was being treated like a worrisome mother."

In 2001, the year after Gerring and Chemsak met with Peace Corps officials, two volunteers reported being raped in Kazakhstan.

Heather Barber said a man forced himself on her after she went to bed following an evening of drinking at a camping outing. Barber said she was not given an immediate medical exam or offered counseling. She said the Peace Corps staff questioned her about her sexual activity and drinking habits, then sent her a morning-after pill.

"They thought I had an alcohol problem and that is why I got attacked," she said.

In a written response, the Peace Corps says Barber initially said she was not sexually assaulted, and when she did report the rape three months later, a nurse told her she would send vouchers to cover her rape counseling.

"As soon as Peace Corps was informed about the rape incident, all appropriate actions took place," the response says. "Ms. Barber's past sexual experiences were not studied." The response, however, says some volunteers expressed concern that Barber was putting herself in "risky" situations.

In July 2001, three months after the assault on Barber, a volunteer was raped by two men in the city of Aktau. The victim, who asked not to be identified, said the Peace Corps did not send an interpreter, as she requested, so she could communicate better with police. She said the agency did pay for her and her host mother to fly to Almaty and for her medical care and counseling in the United States.

A 2001 report by the Peace Corps inspector general criticized the Kazakhstan office and Country Director Williams for the response, saying the post did not establish a protocol for dealing with assault victims, as it was instructed to do a year earlier.

The Peace Corps says in a written response that it has "no information to suggest Mr. Williams had not completed required rape protocol preparation" prior to the July 2001 assault. After the attack, the response says, Williams assisted authorities in their investigation, which resulted in the arrests and convictions of the volunteer's attackers.

Williams couldn't be reached for comment.

Volunteers in Kazakhstan say the current Peace Corps country director, Kris Besch, is attentive to safety issues. They said she has revamped some of the procedures there, making more visits to volunteers and paying to fly distant volunteers to Peace Corps headquarters.

Judy Gerring completed her full 24 months of service in June 2001, and is now in her first year of medical school at Johns Hopkins.

"I’m very thankful," she said of her experience in Kazakhstan. "It was a unique experience. I don’t regret it.

"But," she added, "I wouldn’t do it again in the same way."

[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.31.2003]