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Many cases of domestic violence in the Canadian Forces

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Among those charges are aggravated sexual assault against a spouse, sexual assault, assault of a child, assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon and threats.

REUTERS

	Sue Bailey and Alison Auld The Canadian Press Ottawa

Documents of the military police have reported sexual assaults and disputes between spouses occurred on or near Canadian Forces bases, gestures as counselors attribute to multiple visits troops in Afghanistan.

These documents paint a picture of the tensions and conflicts that erupt regularly in the military across the country. They describe 49 incidents that took place from 1 July 2008 to 1 February 1009, after which charges were laid or complaints were deemed "founded".

Several other cases of aggression - physical or sexual - were treated with measures "alternative" or left to the "discretion" of the Ministry Federal National Defence.

documents, heavily censored, were released by National Defence eight months after The Canadian Press had made the request under the provisions of the Act on Access to Information. The names of suspects and victims were removed, and dates of incidents scratched.

just the tip of the iceberg

Among those charges are aggravated sexual assault against a spouse, sexual assault, assault of a child, assault causing bodily harm, assault Army and threats.

advisers argue that the reports made public by the police are only the tip of the iceberg because many victims of domestic violence have chosen to remain silent.

In January 2009, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has contacted the military police based in Shilo, Manitoba, to inform him that a soldier had been arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault committed against his wife, using a weapon, sexual assault and three counts of threats.

In July 2008, a member of 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment was charged with Oromocto, New Brunswick, of assaulting his girlfriend at their home.

The same month, military police at CFB Borden, located north of Toronto, responded to a distress call from a woman whose husband was subsequently charged with assault.

Currently, hundreds of military families have requested and get help at the base in Petawawa, Ontario, and twenty others were placed on a waiting list. Before the deployment of Canadian forces in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, in 2006, only 12 of them were in such a situation.

Several of the 150 Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan were based in Petawawa.