Sexist remarks, discrimination, sexual assault – for many women seafarers, this is part of their professional lives. Often they are silent. A survivor breaks this taboo.
Victims of sexual violence feel alone and isolated on the high seas
It was her childhood dream to become a seafarer. It took a good week before it broke.
Ann (full name known to the editors) chooses her words carefully at first. “Yes, as a woman you have some bad experiences.” Later she says that she was raped in her second week at the Naval Academy. At that time she was just sixteen years old. At the time, the young Briton told no one what happened. She is ashamed. Today she says she didn't want her dream to end before it even began. On cargo ships, the proportion of women seafarers is just 2 percent of 1.5 million employees, most of whom are male only on their ship.
Sailor Ann in her first year at the Naval Academy
“I was alone”
different ship. More assaults. The boatswain, who is the trainer responsible for her, had her sights set on her and made sure that she always worked with him alone in the hold, where no one else could see her. She lives in constant fear of being attacked, sees her tormentor at every meal. One evening she steps out of the shower. The ship's officer is sitting in her room. He stares at her and grins. Even in her cabin she is not safe.
Ann reports the boatswain. “The man from HR told me I should have expected it. What was my father thinking? He himself would never have sent his own daughter to sea”. From then on she would have known that she was alone may be. “I had nowhere to go.”
“I can't sleep, I'm just crying,” Ann writes in her diary
Not an isolated case
There are many cases like Ann's. “Of all the women seafarers I've met in recent years, there's only one who said she hadn't experienced anything like this,” says Rachel Glynn-Williams, a seafarers' psychologist.
Ann doesn't quit her job for 12 years. Travels by sea all over the world, to Central America, through the Middle East. With every mission she asks herself whether there is a man in the crew who will cause problems this time too. And she learns to avoid some colleagues and wear “the right clothes”.
At some point she is about to become a captain herself. Even if over the years the physical crossing of borders has become less, the whispered insults, the lecherous looks and the bullying via social media remain. Always with the implicit message: A woman has no place here. Eventually she takes a job on land. “It's almost as if they won,” she says in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
Last year, WISTA (Women's International Shipping & Trading Association) surveyed 1128 female seafarers from 78 countries on the subject. 60 percent of the women reported that they had experienced misogynistic discrimination on board. And 25 percent of those surveyed stated that physical and sexual harassment on board is common in their job and that their privacy is invaded.
Difficult to clarify
It's a small miracle that these numbers exist. Because very few cases are reported. Victims are reluctant to come forward because they often have to work in close proximity to their attackers for months. Becky Newdick, CEO of Safer Waves, an NGO that provides anonymous victim counseling, reports that many young women do not want to jeopardize their careers.
A sexual assault on the high seas also poses legal challenges
Even when they report the incidents, they face other challenges. The nearest doctors and responsible police authorities are often thousands of kilometers away. Investigations and the securing of evidence are difficult. Testimonies are often missing because the crew of a ship changes frequently. “Furthermore, it is seldom clear under which law an act that takes place in the middle of international waters is solved. No seafarer has ever been convicted of sexual assault,” says Newdick.
Psychologist: shipping companies are turning their eyes away< /h2>
Psychologist Rachel Glynn-Williams says the culture of the industry is part of the problem. “What has an even longer lasting effect and is sometimes even more stressful for my patients are the things that come afterwards,” she says. To date, the ways to report an incident are too complicated and stressful. Victims would sometimes be advised to get used to smiling it away.
“My patients would often hear things like, 'You know what he's like. Just get out of his way,'” says Glynn-Williams. “It's almost as if it's the victim's job to protect themselves rather than identifying and eliminating the source of the threat.”
It would also make sense for companies to do just that. Because working on ships is risky. Crew members must be able to count on each other. “If there is a toxic dynamic on board, that can be the cause of distraction and withdrawal,” says the psychologist. That quickly leads to an accident. The psychologist thinks it's not just about victims and perpetrators, but about everyone on board. “You know, it's a very risk-averse industry and I can't think of any other security risk that's treated so lightly.”
Safety first? “No other security risk is handled so lightly,” says a psychologist who looks after seafarers on attacks on crew members
#metoo at sea
Something is slowly moving. In 2021, the American Hope Hicks published a report under the pseudonym “Midshipman X” about how she survived a rape as a cadet on board a ship of the American subsidiary of MAERSK, the world's largest container ship shipping company. She wrote that every woman in her class at the US Naval Academy has experienced sexual harassment or assault on ships. With her text, she triggered calls for a cultural change in shipping. Now politicians are interested in the topic. A little #Metoo moment.
Amalie Grevsen, who is responsible for cultural transformation at MAERSK, says in an interview with DW that the Danish company takes every incident seriously. Since the Midshipman X report, MAERSK has increased resources for handling complaints and launched an extensive training program for staff. “We value creating a knowledgeable and robust organization whose employees know how to react in an emergency,” says Grevsen.
MAERSK in a DW interview: “We take every incident seriously”
Ann also looks after young professionals on a voluntary basis. She shares her experiences at naval academies in the UK. She keeps hearing the same stories repeating themselves from young women. But at least they're talking about it now.
Get out of helplessness
She looked at old photos again. Below is a picture of her cabin: a steel door, a curtain. A work overall and a headgear hang on the plywood wall. “Looking at the picture,” she writes, “reminds me how many hours I spent staring at that door, afraid someone would come in. I didn't even go out to eat! “
Ann has been in therapy for two years. She says it's difficult, but she owes it to her husband. She's still trying to fight her guilt. She no longer wants to ask herself whether she could have somehow prevented the attacks. For herself or for the women who came after her.
But she is more hopeful now, because telling stories takes some of the power out of her tormentors, she says. “It should be their shame not mine.”