A 14-year-old Indigenous girl in San Diego County was found alive in the barracks of a Marine Corps base in California, more than two weeks after her family reported her missing.

The family alleges the girl was sex trafficked and sold to a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, Calif., and that military officers are attempting to cover up the incident and sidestep an investigation.

The discovery of the girl has surfaced longstanding concerns about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse in the military, and whether servicemembers are held accountable.

“The military is a workplace in which the most marginalized, particularly working class women of color, are paying the gravest price while playing outsized roles changing the status quo in big and often unseen ways,” Pamela Campos-Palma, a political strategist and organizer, wrote in a piece for Prism earlier this year about her experience with sexual assault and gender-based harrassment in the military after a Latina soldier was found dead at Fort Hood, Texas.

“Historically, the impunity and blind allegiance of generals, politicians, and corporate war profiteers has resulted in wide-spanning intergenerational trauma of war fighters, survivors, and civilians alike.”

The minor was first reported missing to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department on June 13, three days after she’d run away from home. The grandmother informed officers she’d ran away once before, but returned home quickly.

Military police found the girl June 27, and a Marine that was taken into custody for questioning but as of July 14, no charges have been filed. An official with the Marine Logistics Group confirmed the Marine serves with the Combat Logistics Battalion 5, 1st Marine Logistics Group.

In reports from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) obtained by Military.com, investigators claim the girl met the Marine on Tinder using a profile with a fake name and age of 22. The report also claims the Marine said he and the girl had sex a day before he took her to Camp Pendleton, and that text messages from the Marine’s phone show the girl admitting to lying about her age.

In a TikTok post, Casaundra Perez, the girl’s aunt, says this NCIS report is false and maintains this was an instance of sex trafficking. Perez says her niece is unaware of a Tinder profile, and that security witnessed the Marine bring her onto the base, where the Marine proceeded to have sex with her. According to California law, sex with a minor is statutory rape.

After the girl first went missing on June 10, Perez says the family received a call from her a day later ensuring she’d be home soon. Days later, the family received calls from different numbers saying that she’d never return, and pleading with them to remove the missing person’s report.

“That freaked us out, why would a child ask us to remove the missing persons report? That’s weird. We tried tracing the number and even had a relative knocking on doors, asking questions to people,” Perez said in the video.

Perez says they tried to give the leads to the police, who didn’t follow up on the tips. Then on June 27, she was found at Camp Pendleton.

This is not the first time Camp Pendleton has made the news.

In 2019, 16 Marines were arrested and charged with human smuggling and drug offenses. But because the arrest was public, a judge ruled that the NCIS violated “unlawful command influence” —  a military principle — by publicly humiliating the Marines and effectively influencing the court process. So, the charges against most of the Marines were dropped.

This incident sheds light on the long, troubled history with sexual assault across all branches of the U.S. military. According to the 2022 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, the Department of Defense received 8,942 reports of sexual assault involving servicemembers.

There have been noteworthy cases in the Marines, too. In 2021, a former Marine was convicted of drugging and trafficking hundreds of women near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Part of the reason assault within the military or by servicemembers has been able to fester is because the crimes are rarely prosecuted in the insular military justice  system.  Only half of the 6,200 reports of sexual assault by service members made in 2020 resulted in a conviction.

When a member of the military is accused of an offense, the investigation is typically led by military police or criminal investigative agencies, with support from local law enforcement when needed. In the case of this missing minor, NCIS is leading the investigation, with support from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department.

However, unlike federal courts, the military justice system is not obligated to release court records to the public. A 2016 law attempted to do away with some of the secrecy in the military by requiring military courts to release records at all stages of the justice system, but in early 2023, the Department of Defense issued guidelines allowing its six branches the discretion to suppress information until a trial is over.

In the TikTok, Perez expressed concern over authorities’ mishandling of the investigation, from the moment her niece was reported missing and officers chose not to pursue the family’s leads. Now, she claims military authorities are attempting to brush the incident under the rug, pointing to an article on military.com that includes information from a NCIS report of the incident which Perez says is false.

“The more people that are aware, the less likely it is for predators to hide. As for the military, it’s looking really bad on you,” Perez said in the TikTok.

Montse Reyes is a writer and editor based in Oakland and raised in California’s Central Valley. She enjoys writing about the intersection of race, gender and class, particularly as they relate to culture at large.