Fighting for Survivors of Sexual Assault on Cruise Ships

Hickey Law Firm, America’s Maritime Law Firm, now handles and has handled for over 20 years claims by cruise passengers and crewmembers of sexual assault onboard cruise ships. We have had these claims against almost every major cruise line in the world. John H. (Jack) Hickey, the founder of the firm, represented cruise lines for the first almost 20 years of his career. The comments below, offered in an interview recently with Newsweek, are based on that vast experience with these cases.

Cruise lines are in control of onboard crime scenes

Because of the nature of a cruise on a ship often in isolated or developing parts of the world, a sexual assault of a passenger by, for example, a crewmember, can be a harrowing, traumatic experience. The cruise line has control over the perpetrator, the crime scene, the investigation of the crime, and the passenger victim. The cruise line may side with the crewmembers’ version of events and not remove the perpetrator from the ship, as we saw recently in a case we have. Worse, the cruise line might not advise the passenger of what happened to the crewmember. This can re-traumatize and re-victimize the passenger because of the lack of information and by the prospect of seeing the same crewmember onboard and maybe being a victim of a brutal encounter a second time.

What makes cruises such a hot spot for assault?

There are several reasons that cruise ships create a risk of sexual assaults, not least of which is that cruise ships are essentially islands of drinking and partying. Some of the other reasons cruises are potentially dangerous include:

Crew members are often young men away from home

The crewmembers on board the ship are usually young men. These young men are onboard for usually 6 to 10 months at a time, when they work 7 days a week for 12 to 14 hours. They are away from their friends and family for that time. And they are surrounded by the passengers who are on vacation and relaxed, who are drinking alcohol, and who sometimes are female and scantily clad.

Hiring practices lack proper background checks or oversight

To make matters worse, the cruise lines recruit crewmembers from developing countries with little infrastructure for accurate criminal records on people. And the culture in some of those countries allows or tolerates sex with women who we in the U.S. and other developed countries consider to be underage.

The cruise lines select their prospects for crewmembers from “hiring partners” who are agents of the cruise line and who go to or live in the target country and who are paid by the head for people they get to the cruise line and whom the cruise line wants to hire. These hiring partners have broad criteria for the selection of the people they send to the cruise line.

Security and law enforcement are lacking on cruise ships

Finally, there is no independent or governmental police force onboard any cruise ship. Security is provided only by cruise line employees. If you want to report or have investigated a rape onboard, you have to wait until the next port. Much of the time, the next port is an island nation that does not have the interest or the resources to investigate. If the assault took place by or to a U.S. citizen and the cruise touched a U.S. port, the FBI will investigate. If the ship did not touch a U.S. port, as so many do these days, the cruise line will not call the FBI, and the FBI will not get involved.

All of this is a recipe for sexual assaults of women on board the ships.

In your expertise, how accurate is the Department of Transportation data on cruise assaults, which they compile from the FBI?

Although reports of sexual assault on cruise ships are rising, the DOT website statistics on onboard rapes and sexual assaults remains way low. That is for two main reasons:

• First, the cruise lines under-report for whatever reason, whether intentionally or through incompetence.
• Second, the cruise lines report only what the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (SVSSA) requires them to report, and nothing more.

The issue with the SVSSA is that it only requires reporting of what the statute classifies as a sexual assault, and only if the perpetrator or the victim is a U.S. citizen, and only if the voyage or cruise on which it happened touched a U.S. port. So, all of the rapes and assaults which happen to passengers who are citizens of a European country, for example, do not get reported. And, the rape and assault of U.S. citizens on cruises in Europe that did not start or stop in the U.S. do not get reported.

What is the best recourse for passengers who have been assaulted on cruises?

The best recourse for any rape victim onboard a cruise ship is to:

1. Report the assault: Report it onboard to the physician in the infirmary and insist – before you shower– on a rape kit (standard rape pelvic) exam.
2. Contact the FBI: If you are a U.S. citizen, contact the FBI at once and report the assault.
3. Document evidence: Take photos of any bruises, cuts, scratches, lacerations, and bumps, and anything else that shows what happened.
4. Get a lawyer: Call an attorney who specializes in representing passengers or crewmembers against the cruise lines.

Look for attorneys who are Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Admiralty & Maritime, who are Board Certified Trial Lawyers, and who represented the cruise lines for over 15 years. That is only one lawyer: Jack Hickey.

Call us or fill out our contact form today to schedule a free consultation with an attorney who knows how to fight for the rights of survivors of sexual assaults on cruise ships.