Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Representatives Jill Tokuda (HI-02), Sara Jacobs (CA-51), and Marilyn Strickland (WA-10) led 21 of their colleagues in seeking urgent answers from the U.S. Department of Defense in response to an April 10, 2024 article from Military.com detailing systemic failures to report child abuse and harm at military child care centers. That article included shocking details of one military family’s experiences at the Ford Island Child Development Center near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawai‘i.
“The Department’s child care programs are critical to supporting military families, with direct impacts on mission readiness, morale, and recruitment and retention,” wrote the lawmakers. “Ensuring the safety and well-being of children on military installations is of paramount importance to the trust between service members, their families, and the Department of Defense, with significant implications for ongoing recruitment and retention issues.”
Representative Tokuda serves as a member of the House Armed Services Committee and its Subcommittee on Military Personnel, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Defense’s child care policies. She previously asked the Secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, several questions regarding the Army’s child care reporting policies during an Army budget posture hearing on April 16, 2024.
The full letter can be found here.
Other signatories of the letter are Representatives Salud Carbajal (CA-24), André Carson (IN-07), Matt Cartwright (PA-08), Jason Crow (CO-06), Don Davis (NC-01), Chris Deluzio (PA-17), Robert Garcia (CA-42), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Steven Horsford (NV-04), Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Andy Kim (NJ-03), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18), Susie Lee (NV-03), Jennifer McClellan (VA-04), Jim McGovern (MA-02), Kevin Mullin (CA-15), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL), Pat Ryan (NY-18), and Terri Sewell (AL-07).
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