Almost a third (32 percent) of women surveyed said they had experienced unwanted touching and eight percent reported non-consensual sexual activity.
Male service personnel also faced sexual harassment, with 34 percent saying they had encountered sexualized behavior, most of which was verbal.
Junior personnel were disproportionately targeted, with 71 percent of women below officer ranks having experienced sexualized behavior compared with 58 percent of female officers. Women of both rank groupings were more likely to have experienced sexualized behavior than equivalent male ranks.
The survey of more than 94,000 service personnel was carried out following previous reviews by Air Chief Marshal Michael Wigston and the House of Commons Defence Committee, both of which called for a more thorough inquiry into the scale of the issue.
Defense Minister Louise Sandher-Jones MP called the results “wholly unacceptable.”
The survey “provides a no-holds barred baseline to fully confront and address the root causes of this issue,” she added, while “new standards in transparency and accountability are being set across our armed forces.”
