Sexual assault at sea: poignant celebrating and mourning

 

Hope Hicks

Please celebrate and mourn with me today. There are two inspiring things relating to whistle-blowing officer cadet Hope Hicks, the most famous maritime rape survivor: 

1.  this afternoon she graduates from the US Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), despite her ordeal. 

2. this week she waived anonymity for the first time. Up until Tuesday she'd only been known only as Midshipman-X and not seen in any photograph.

Hope has not enjoyed a simple training period.  The then-19-year- old's revelation that an engineer raped her in 2019 went viral. The appalling story of drunkenss and shipmates'  complicity led to hundreds more disclosures by women and men, and to much discussion by policy-makers. 

Hope's brave honesty has created the most productive furore yet in the history of battling to end sexual abuse at sea.

Ahead of her is a future as an officer with the US Navy -- and soon her well-supported New York court proceedings against Maersk Line Ltd. 

She's alleging that 'Maersk failed to adequately protect U.S. Merchant Marine Academy midshipmen from sexual assault and sexual harassment while working aboard Maersk ships as part of the USMMA’s “Sea Year” program.'

'“Speaking up against a powerful corporation is intimidating, which is why, up to this point, Hope has declined to reveal her identity, opting instead to go by the moniker Midshipman-X,” said Christine Dunn, Partner at Sanford Heisler Sharp and counsel for plaintiffs  [14 June]. 

“But, today, Hope is publicly identifying herself in an effort to seek justice for the sexual assault and harassment that she, and others – like Midshipman-Y, endured aboard Maersk vessels.”'

Akhona Geveza: murder or suicide?

Let's respectfully mourn Hope's predecessor, possibly the most tragic maritime rape victim of the 21st century: officer cadet Akhona Geveza from Safmarine Kariba.  

She didn't survive to campaign in court and on social media.

Both women are crucial figures in this struggle for safety at sea. 

Akhona was drowned off Croatia on 24 June 2010, twelve years ago next Friday. Both she and Hope were only 19 at the time that these alleged and separate-but-related incidents shifted the courses of their lives forever.  

Did Akhona jump (to avoid the imminent showdown with her alleged rapist) or was she pushed (to shut her up?) And was she lying? And was sexual misconduct really not a problem at all on Safmarine ships? 

Those are still the telling questions being asked. Akhona made headlines, briefly, before #MeToo took off. 

Her case has yet to bring the staggering amount of useful publicity and the attempts at legal redress that Hope's situation continues to generate.   

Midshipman-Y: knife, begged

Plus ca change? One of Hope's colleagues, Midshipman Y, is joining in filing a civil lawsuit against Maersk. In 2020 she was on the same ship,  M/V Alliance Fairfax, (pictured) just after Hope. 

"According to the complaint, Midshipman-Y was so severely sexually harassed aboard a Maersk ship during her Sea Year that she slept clutching a knife for protection.

"Midshipman-Y’s complaint alleges that she experienced extreme sexual harassment, unwanted touching and discrimination while on board the same Maersk vessel two years later. 

"... Midshipman-Y was severely sexually harassed by a crewmember who was known to other Maersk officers and crewmembers as being violent. Although crewmembers and officers were allegedly aware of the harassment, no one intervened or reported the misconduct.

 "The complaint further alleges that Midshipman-Y was treated less favorably than male crewmembers on account of her gender. 

"Driven to desperation, at the first opportunity, Midshipman-Y begged USMMA representatives to get her off the ship prior to the completion of her required sea time. 

"As a result, Midshipman-Y is unsure if she will ever be emotionally capable of completing the USMMA."

Will Alliance Fairfax go down in history as a Ship of Shame; The Ro-ro That Put  Rape Culture on the Map of Infamies; or as The Final Frontier for Sexual Abuse at Sea? 

More importantly, 

• Will all shipping companies now be working harder to change their cultures? 
• Will there be discussion about charges that offshore abuse is an extension of onshore abuse in headquarters? 
• Can we air some seawomen's telling concern that speaking out about abuse is counter-productive; it can lead to shipping companies deciding not to employ women at sea because it's too much trouble? 

Read about Hope's latest steps at:

• https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/midshipman-x-reveals-her-identity-in-suit-against-maersk-line-ltd
• https://www.tradewindsnews.com/containerships/midshipman-x-revealed-usmma-student-heartened-by-response-to-essay-detailing-sex-assault-at-sea/2-1-1238048

Making ships safer, happier workplaces

Hope celebrated her 22nd birthday last Tuesday, the day that she inspiringly went even more public. 

Akhona didn't get to be that old, nor that publicly courageous. And she died just a fortnight before she was about to celebrate her graduation day. 

But Akhona can posthumously inspire others to speak out. 

As a veteran historian of so many seafarers who've suffered discrimination I feel  sad and angered. All young seafarers deserve to celebrate their birthdays, to feel pride as they pass out into graduate life, and to enjoy long careers free from harassment and assault. Don't they?

• 'Say no to violence against women',urges the International Transport Workers' Federation.  Here's how: ITFguide  
• You can get free support and info via Safer Waves. It's the charity supporting merchant seafarers who have experienced sexual assault, sexual harassment or gender discrimination.

10 FAQs. Black women in maritime history

1. Were there any BAME women seafarers in Britain's past? 

Yes, but not many and only post-1980s. A key example of success in that trend is Captain Belinda Bennett, (pictured above) from 2016 the world’s first black woman captain of a cruise ship. 

In countries where the majority of the population is black and brown then women had a more success e.g. in Ghana, Beatrice Vormawah, (pictured below) the world’s first black women captain in 1995. https://genderedseas.blogspot.com/2015/01/ghanas-pioneering-seawomen.html

2.  Did BAME women do particular jobs on British ships?  

Yes. The situation was and is culturally specific: women from the Philippines have predominated in domestic work; today women from India often work in finance departments on cruise ships. There’s no intrinsic reason for this. This is proven because o there have been BAME women engineers, and deck officers who have worked their way up to captain status.

3.  Why have so few BAME women worked on UK ships?  

It is odd. You might expect employers to take advantage of people who could be doubly low-paid because female and dark-skinned. This did not happen. 

Knowing the history of female maritime labour I deduce three explanations for this, apart from the fact that women were few anyway, and usually confined to domestic jobs mainly until the late 1970s.

# PROTECTIONISM. From at least 1900-1985 the National Union of Seamen argued that British people should be given jobs first, then white ‘foreigners’ second, then BAME people. 

When the UK’s BAME population was small, this made BAME women proportionately less likely to get into seafaring work as stewardesses (the main job open to women, which was highly sought after) than white women. 

# "CONSUMERS' XENOPHOBIA." It is likely that shipowners would justify preferring white women for this relatively intimate job by saying that passengers would not want BAME women as stewardesses.

 (This is not openly discussed in any documents I have seen; it’s something I gather from what I'm told off the record, and from detecting employment patterns from company records.)

# SEX FEARS. Relatedly, elite-ish white passengers on ships serving the Raj were used to having black servants. This is why companies such as P&O and British India could carry Asian male General Servants (as stewards were called) throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By contrast Indian women were not employed as such GSs or stewardesses. 

Reasons for this include shipping lines fears about social stability and intimate ’immoral’ racial mixing. There would be anxiety that the women might be used for sex – by passengers and other crew. The issue was not to protect such women but protect the shipping company from scandal and consequent reduced ticket sales.

4. What about BAME women passengers on UK ships? 

Yes, there have been some, including ayahs (see picture) and the multiple wives of some African leaders in the nineteenth century. Numbers have grown since cruising became more affordable from the late 1960s. 

Unequal pay practices mean single women and some BAME people tended to not have an income that allowed such travel earlier, especially as solo women. More BAME women came into the UK (e.g., Indian women for university education) than left its shores. 

This is because the biggest outbound traffic by women – as emigrants to the empire and US – was by white people, the majority of the population. I have not found any BAME women among the convicts or convicts' wives being forcibly transported e.g. to Van Diemen’s Land.

5.  Women are sexually abused on ships. Has this been worse for BAME women? 

Yes, the 2010 Akhona Geveza case is the key example of this.  https://genderedseas.blogspot.com/2010/07/cadet-gevezas-death-exposes-shipboard.html. 

See picture. The cultural idea that dark women are attractively exotic, and have animal instincts, has led to their being targeted. Most women do not report such crime, even in these #MeToo times.

6.  Have BAME women been stowaways on ships to the UK? 

Yes, a few. Especially from the Caribbean to the UK. The most famous is Evelyn Wauchope, followed by Hazel Brown. Both left Jamaica in this way in 1948, but Hazel was deported home. Stowaways’ motives include accessing a free passage. That means that women, who have usually been paid much less than men, would have particular need to stow away. If sage, women knew that ships’ officials and port magistrates would receive BAME women even less leniently than white women – but probably still give women better treatment than black men.

7. Did BAME women disguise themselves as men to sail on British ships? 

Possibly. About 44 such women are recorded. But the only known black one was ‘William Brown’. From Grenada, she sailed on the Queen Charlotte in 1815. https://genderedseas.blogspot.com/2017/04/black-woman-cross-dressed-seafarer.html. 

There is no reason to think that she was discovered more readily or ejected more quickly than white women. However this may have been so. Officers simply feared that the presence of any women not married to men aboard would lead to promiscuous sexual activity and men’s rivalry for access to the women.

8.   Were BAME women involved in maritime business ashore in the UK? 

Yes, but we don’t know the extent of this. One example is Mrs. Penelope Steel, from Jamaica. She part-funded the publication Steel’s Navy List, which was equivalent of a search engine like google, specific to the biggest employer in Britain.  https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/three-women-london-chart-trade-c1800-1860. 

A surprising number of well-off white wives funded husband’s careers as naval officers. BAME women overseas certainly provided sexual, and laundry services for visiting sailors. It is likely that they would have also have done so in the UK. Such grey economy low-waged work is seldom recorded, whatever the worker’s ethnicity.

9. Have BAME women been in the Royal Navy for long? 

No. In both world wars there is evidence that women thought to have ‘a touch of the tar brush’ were rejected, or selectively processed, in the WRNS. This was partly out of fear that ‘foreign birth’ would compromise national security. 

From the 1970s personnel shortages meant recruits were actively sought in the Caribbean, women included. 

A small number of BAME women were in the WRNS (which was about 3,000-strong in the late 20C).  This pattern continued and increased when the WRNS was subsumed into the Navy in 1993. But there were no BAME Wrens among the first 20 allowed to go to sea in 1991.

Today BAME people are 3.8 of the Royal Navy/Royal Marines, which is strong on equal opportunities. As about 600 women are at sea at any one time currently, logically nineteen may be from a BAME background. https://tinyurl.com/2018-gov-stats, (see page 7).

10.   Did UK girls’ sea training organisations include BAME girls? 

Yes, in small numbers and lately. The Sea Rangers began in 1920 and the Girls Nautical Training Corps in 1942.  From the 1960s both organisations had small numbers of BAME girls, and later a few officers. 

Numbers increased as the UK’s BAME population increased. The Sea Rangers website features BAME girls.

Race and the Sea conference, Liverpool Sept 2017

(Black seafarers were part of the crew. Racial mixing and integration was normal, as this image by Maclise, The Death of Nelson, indicates.)

Race and the Sea is something maritime historians in the UK are giving attention to.

Liverpool's Centre for Port and Maritime History is making an important step towards making research visible by organising a conference on this theme on September 15, 2017 at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

"Since ancient times peoples of different races have enjoyed a relationship with the sea. This has included trade, exploration and the pursuit of empire. We seek to better understand the relationship between race and the ocean." say the organisers.

Conference themes include Maritime History, Transport, Port-towns,Activities on-board ship, Conflict & reconciliation at sea, Maritime warfare, Maritime exploration & science, Maritime economies, Maritime law, Maritime art, Tourism & leisure at sea.

For more information go to: http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/15776

Women in relation to race at sea can be found on this blog using the search terms 'race' and 'black.' For example, the UK's first black woman cruise ship captain was Belinda Bennett in 2016.

And the tragic loss at sea of Akhona Geveza (was she murdered to shut her up or was it suicide?) after her sexual harassment allegation can never be highlighted enough. (pictured below left)
.

Nominations for top Black and Minority Ethnic women seafarers

In Black History Month it's appropriate for a maritime blog about women to discuss black female seafarers.

I'd like to nominate these highly significant figures in history for my heroines. And I would be glad to hear of other suggestions. Please join in.

From my point of view there are at least three (all of whom you can find in earlier entries on this blog):

1.
William Brown, the only known black woman to disguise herself as a boy and go to sea: 1815

2.
Cadet Akhona Geveza, victim of sexual abuse, who disappeared overboard. She was possibly murdered to shut her up: 2010. womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/?tag=akhona-geveza


3.
Belinda Bennett, Britain's first black woman cruise ship captain, 2016.www.prweb.com/releases/2016/03/prweb13298785.htm

For more black women, including captains, search this site using the terms 'race' and 'black'.