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.

Sex, gender, and the US Navy

TRANS PEOPLE

The good news is that on Monday 25 Jan the new US president Joe Biden reversed a Pentagon policy that largely barred transgender individuals from joining the US military.

This reverses the ban ordered by Donald Trump, in a tweet, during his first year in office. An estimated 15,000 out of 1.5 million active-duty troops are affected.  Working on that basis, I calculate the decision will matter to around 1% cent of the 336,978-strong US Navy.

Protesting in 2017: Stop Transgender Military Ban rally at the White House.

 Image by Ted Eytan 

 

I

It’s been a long fight, with many challenges along the way. Kristin Beck (pictured), who’d served 20 years and  became the first US Navy SEAL to come out as transgender in 2013,told Trump “Let’s meet face to face and you tell me I’m not worthy.” 

Kristin declared a person’s gender identity made no difference to their ability to do the job. (Independent. 26 July 2017)

 TIMELINE: TRANS IN THE US MILITARY

• From 1960-2016 all trans people were banned from serving in the US military
• From 2016-2018 they were allowed to serve to serve in their identified or assigned gender, upon completing transition.
• From 2018-2019 they could enlist in the United States military only on condition that they had been stable for 18 months in their identified or assigned gender
• From 2019 they were not allowed to serve/ enlist, except if serving 'in their original sex' 

Here’s an interesting US article from 2017, with troubling responses:  Should Transgender Persons Serve? https://tinyurl.com/Trans-serve.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The other good news is that Lloyd Austin, the new Defense Secretary, plans to end the ‘scourge’ of sexual violence in the US armed forces.

“You do agree that we can’t keep doing the same thing that we’ve been doing for the past decade?” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (pictured), a New York Democrat, said during Austin’s confirmation hearing. 

“Do I have your commitment to be relentless on this issue until we can end the scourge of sexual violence in the military?” https://tinyurl.com/Gillibrand-to-Austin. Yes, he assured her.

What’s the scale of the problem? The latest figures (fiscal year 2019) show there were 7,825 reported assaults involving military members of the US armed forces as victims or subjects. That's a 3 per cent increase on the previous year.

Women were roughly 4 times as likely as men to be targets (aka 'victims'). Of people on active duty an estimated 24% of women and 6% of men reported being sexually harassed. https://tinyurl.com/sex-assault-2019

I could not find information broken down to show the 52,391 women currently in the US Navy. This figure would have been very interesting, especially if it had showed sexual harassment levels on ships. For example, is it that the longer or harder the voyage, the greater the number and severity of the sexual difficulties?

 

IN 1983 PROBLEM WAS KNOWN

Naval Officer Maribeth Coye wrote a very useful MSC management thesis, Sexual Harassment and Rape in the Navy. She produced it in 1983 and it was released in 2013. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36728426.pdf

Maribeth Coye Decker today

After surveying 322 women Maribeth found 'sexual harassment and rape are significant problems in the US Navy.’

Under-reporting was, and still is, a major issue. But officers are more likely to report their experiences than ratings. 84% said they had been harassed.

Was it worse on ships? No. She found that ‘especially outside the continental United States, some men may act in ways they would never dream of doing ...but believe is "expected of a REAL sailor” in overseas ports.‘

Macho attitudes didn’t help. Their officers, ‘especially if they have no women on board, may ignore or tolerate these behaviors' as just 'letting off steam'. Evidence refuted the illusion that sexual harassment was merely courtship behaviur that went too far.

Did it even happen on ships? 

Sexual harassment happened mainly in the workplace (30% of cases). The majority of attempted rapes happened off-base (44%).

Women at that time were seldom assaulted on vessels because women were not allowed to serve on naval ships until 1978, and only on combatant ships from 1994.

At this date Navy Counselor First Class (NC1) Cheryl Ann Cassarella (pictured) was one of the first  59, on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.  The sexual harassment cases she surely faced are not revealed to the public.  

 ‘IGNORANCE’  AND CONSEQUENCES

Maribeth found that in the 1980s women were only 7% of personnel, (by comparison to 16% today) and were mainly clustered in low-status ‘women’s work.’ This meant they were in a weak position in relation to men.

Their more senior male colleagues had been in the Navy at a time when women were denied a place at sea 'Therefore they had no role models for dealing with women as co-workers' but only as wives or girlfriends. 

As one male officer said '"I had to develop a whole new concept of what women are. It is very difficult when overseas and the primary woman contact was a hooker.'"

Buy hey, there's been time to learn in the four decades since 1983, when the first guidelines and grievance procedures were only just being put in place.

Change matters because women who’ve been assaulted can be left with STDs and lifelong trauma. They resign instead of developing their potential after years of training.

But if women did have sex at sea – wanted or unwanted – only 18% of ratings and 3% of officers became pregnant while on ships, according to the 1998 Pregnancy and Single Parenthood in the Navy study. Contraceptive pills were invaluable.https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA353976.pdf. 

WOMEN IN UK NAVY TODAY

Is it a similar situation for the 9.4% women in the 30,000-strong Royal Navy Royal Marines’ regular forces today?

In 2015 a report was issued: Royal Navy and Royal Marines Sexual Harassment Survey. It found only 2% of respondents reported being sexually assaulted and this number had been stable for years.

For more on the various kinds of sexual harassment see https://tinyurl.com/RN-RM-report-2015.  Firm guidelines are in place. But cultural changes are slow.

The very day I write this blog the Daily Mail is reporting that a naval technician has just been court-martialled at Bulford. The 22-year-old AB was found guilty of sexually assaulting a junior colleague. It was on an unnamed naval ship at Tokyo in October 2019, which Prince Charles had just visited.

The woman said that her assailant ‘”was in my bed and he wrapped his arms around me. He started kissing my neck and his hands were going towards my shorts.”’ 

She began kicking him off and ‘he told her to “shut up you stupid c***” and began knocking items off the drawers in her cabin before slumping down naked in a chair.’

‘She helped him put his boxer shorts back on before going to find the duty officer who helped remove the drunken sailor from her cabin.’

In mitigation he claimed his margaritas must have been spiked. No chemical evidence was found. www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-9197237 › Royal.

Navy tackles sexual assault: 'banter' and buns

This is a straight lift from an article in Metro, 16 Oct 2019. 

Sex-charge sailor ‘poked hair of his female colleagues’ by Annabal Bagdi. https://www.metro.news/sex-charge-sailor-poked-hair-of-his-female-colleagues/1760038/

I have added sub-headings for readabilty, as well as links to related cases. 

A surprising amount of sexist behaviour still exists within this 30,000-strong organisation, in which women are 10 %. 

Since 1990 the UK Royal Navy has officially been hot on supporting respect and equal opportunities. The Merchant Navy's record is poorer. 

Women either tackle the matter informally, leave their jobs, or - in most cases - keep quiet. https://twitter.com › hashtag › whyididntreport

Court martial

"A SAILOR has been accused of sexual assault after allegedly poking the hair-dos of female colleagues.

   PO Patrick Bennett made lewd jibes while repeatedly touching the women’s bun hairstyles, a court martial heard.

   He is said to have shrugged off the remarks as ‘office banter’, telling one woman at the Royal Navy Air Station in Yeovilton, Somerset, that she would have a short-lived military career unless she played along.

   The woman told Bulford military court in Wiltshire that on one occasion the serviceman, based on HMS Diamond, grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand towards his groin.

   She recalled ‘snatching’ her hand away and managing to only touch his trouser material.

 

PO Patrick Bennett RN: Yeovilton

'Banter' and PMT

She told the court martial: ‘He said once “if you don’t take banter, you’re not going to get very far in the Navy”, and once asked if I was in a mood because I was on my period.’

   When interviewed, Bennett said he never intended for his comments to be taken as innuendos and apologised when asked to stop.

 
'Hairy bun hole'

A second woman said Bennett had poked his fingers into her hair bun up to 20 times while working at the air station and made comments about her weight.

    ‘When you have your hair in a bun, it creates a natural hole in the middle, and he stuck his finger in the centre of that bun,’ she said. ‘He would say “how’s your hairy bun hole?”’

   She denied fabricating the allegations to ‘get back at’ the serviceman and rejected claims she disliked him.

   Prosecutor Maj Lindsey Jones said: ‘This was not banter — this was uninvited, it was unwanted and it was sexual assault.’

   Bennett denies four counts of sexual assault. The trial continues."

Recent related cases in UK Navy

HMS Vanguard, Wikimedia Commons

2016. In August 2016 Lt. Basil Purdue was sacked in disgrace following a court martial. He had groped a junior's breast aboard submarine HMS Vanguard. (pictured)
The  woman said  “I am constantly battling to show women are equal in the RN but they are not."
 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/01/royal-navy-officer-sacked-in-disgrace-after-groping-female-sailo/

2018. There were 65 courts martial of naval personnel. Six of these were for alleged sexual offences. Four of the six were found not guilty. Of the two found guilty, the lieutenant from Northwood convicted of rape and attempted sexual assault was give a seven-year sentence. https://tinyurl.com/GOV-courts-martial-2018

US and UK Navies

US Navy policy tries to prevent sexual assault.
In 2011 the policy was found to be inadequate.
https://www.stripes.com/dod-oversight-of-sexual
-harassment-policies-inadequate-gao-finds-1.158790.

In 2016 in the US Navy there were 1403 cases of sexual assault reported. Under-reporting is common. 
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/august/nobody-asked-me-sexual-assault-not-our-navy

288 reported cases occurred in the Royal Navy in the years 2017 and 2018 combined. 
Investigators found a further 60 cases that were not reported.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48993201

Cadet Geveza's death exposes shipboard sexual harrassment

This week South African media are reporting the tragic death of Akhona Geveza, a nineteen-year-old South African woman cadet on a cargo ship.

Clever, beautiful and set for a career at sea, she disappeared from the British-registered Safmarine Kariba on June 24. Her poor body was found drifting in the sea off the Croatian coast three days later.

Was she killed by shipmates? Did she kill herself?

Either way,the key seems to be that the day she died a fellow cadet reported (on Akhona's behalf, and against her wishes) that a senior officer, had repeatedly raped her.

Cadet Nokulunga Cele stated that Geveza had said that the Ukrainian officer first tried to kiss her while he was teaching her to swim early in May. Later he apologised to her and called her to his room. But there he allegedly raped her.

Cele said Geveza was not willing to report the matter to the shipmaster because she feared that nobody would believe her. What a lonely, terrible, situation. What an indictment of the shipboard regime.

There is no way that people trying to do their job should ever, ever, be allowed to be abused. It is especially outrageous when the victim is young and at sea because of economic need. (Akhona's father John Geveza, said the career of his only child had represented hope for her unemployed parents in the Eastern Cape).

It is even worse again when their abuser has additional social power over them - such as the ability to enable promotion, or even just daily wellbeing.

Akhona Geveza was a cadet on the Transnet National Port Authority’s maritime studies programme. It was set up as part of a campaign to encourage young women to become seafarers.

But the few stories leaking out so far suggest just how much the merchant shipping industry still has to learn about respecting and supporting vulnerable women - and young men - at sea. More than encouragement is needed. A decent working situation, free from violence, is crucial.

Geveza’s fellow cadets subsequently revealed that there was systematic abuse of power by senior officers at sea “who threatened cadets’ careers if they did not perform sexual acts” reported the South Africa Sunday Times. A woman had to have two abortions, after being raped at sea. Two male cadets were raped by senior officials.

At 10am on June 24 Shipmaster Klaudiusz Kolodziejczyk heard about the rape. He says he immediately confronted the officer and convened a conference with him and Geveza for 11am.

When she failed to arrive for the meeting,he organised a search. Kolodziejczyk, alerted by some pills and a bottle of thinners found on the forecastle of the ship, sounded the alarm and called Sea Rescue at Rijeka.

Captain Kolodziejczyk was no doubt well-intentioned in organising the three-way conference But really! It's insane to subject a victim to that, especially when she was to work with that officer for a long period in an enclosed institution far out at sea. Doesn't Kolodziejczyk know how bullying and social pressure work?

Not only would the rest of her voyage be torture. It's also wrong to treat a rape as a personal dispute between two parties. Rape is a crime. Doesn't officer training include basic procedural advice about how to support the victim? Even the newest police officer ashore knows how traumatising a confrontation could be.

The very least that should be done by Transnet is ensure that this can never again happen on any ship. Akhona's death should alert all masters and shipowners to the very drastic need for training. All ships should be respectful workplaces, where, if there are any such crimes, they are dealt with appropriately.