Cruise Ship Blues: The Underside of the Cruise Ship Industry (11 page)

With a medium risk of a terrorist attack, cruise lines are required to search at least half of all ship’s stores, embarking passengers, and carry-on baggage, as well as to provide passengers with photo identification cards. At the highest risk level, all passengers and all baggage, both carry-on and checked-in, must be inspected. In addition, the targeted cruise ship has the option of bypassing any scheduled port of call where terrorists are expected to strike.

The ICCL Assures Congress But Misstates the Facts

On October 2, 2001, International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL) president Michael Crye testified on security issues before the Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. He assured the committee that since the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the cruise industry was operating at level-three security.
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Committee members were appropriately impressed.

However, I had visited a ship in port at St. John’s, Newfoundland, several days before Crye testified and observed that even the less stringent security requirements under level two weren’t being observed. Passengers were not required to have photo identification, and few if any carry-on items were being inspected. I walked aboard with a briefcase that was neither scanned nor opened.

To regain entry to the ship, passengers were asked to show only their room key — no photo identification — and for a substantial amount of time (because of a computer malfunction), the safety officer simply wrote down the names of people as they left and checked them off when they returned. While Michael Crye boasted about the passenger-access control system used by most cruise ships to monitor access to the ship, the 2,000-passenger ship I boarded had none.

The system, also called A-PASS (Automated Personnel Assisted Security Screening), provides high-speed, interactive photo identification and screening of passengers and crew as they enter and exit a ship. Prior to embarking, passengers stop at a kiosk, insert their shipboard identification card, and have their picture taken by a camera within the kiosk. Thereafter, each time passengers exit or enter the ship, they insert their card into a kiosk located near the ship’s gangway, where the time of entry or exit is recorded. As well, the safety officer stationed at the gangway matches the photograph on the computer with the person. The system allows ship personnel to know, at any point in time, who is aboard the ship and who is off. Together with automated locks on cabins that record each entry to and exit from a cabin, and the increasing use of surveillance cameras throughout the ship, personnel are able to keep track of the comings and goings of most passengers.

Photo ID System at Mercy of Human Error

These sophisticated security systems are, however, at the mercy of human error. Here’s an example. In July 2000 a nine-year-old autistic boy wandered onto Carnival Cruise Line’s
Sensation
while it was visiting New Orleans as part of a seven-day cruise from Tampa. He somehow got past customs officials and ship employees, boarding the ship with a woman who had a group of children. The woman showed her ship-issued identification card, said the children were with her, and the group was allowed to pass. It wasn’t until midnight that crew realized the youngster was not actually part of any group and began the process of trying to identify him. This was difficult because the boy was uncommunicative and had no identification, and the missing person report filed with the New Orleans police had been misplaced. Two days later when the ship reached Tampa, the boy was taken into custody by authorities, and another day later he was finally reunited with his mother.

In another incident two months later, a woman was reported missing from Princess Cruises’
Dawn Princess
on its Alaska itinerary. The room steward reported her absence when he entered to clean her room and found that she hadn’t slept in the bed. Because the A-PASS system did not indicate that she had disembarked, crew assumed she must have fallen overboard sometime between 4:30 the afternoon before (when she was last seen) and 8:30 that morning (when she was noticed missing). The Coast Guard was notified and a search was undertaken. A day later the woman was located — at her home in Michigan. She had left the ship in Juneau because of a disagreement with her traveling companion.

Despite public assurances and security policies, a ship is still vulnerable. On a cruise in December 2001 — less than three months after the events of September 11 — I noticed that the security zone required for heightened security measures was not always maintained around the ship. Most passengers never even think about the inherent security risks associated with a cruise.

The Risk of Assault

Although relatively uncommon in terms of the number of passenger days, the risk of assault exists on cruise ships. “Gay bashing” has been reported on a number of cruises where a group of gays was mixed with straight single men. As well, there are occasional reports of altercations between passengers, often with one or both in a state of intoxication. A cruise ship is a microcosm of the larger society. The problems that are common on land follow you onto the seas.

Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

Almost every year there are one or two media reports of children being sexually assaulted onboard a cruise ship. How common these occurrences are is hard to tell.

One problem is that cruise lines tend to avoid reporting physical and sexual assaults. Although the FBI and Coast Guard are authorized to investigate and prosecute any alleged crimes involving American citizens in international waters, and IMO security guidelines require that the operator of a vessel report each unlawful act, until 1999 there was ambiguity about the definition of “unlawful.” According to a related story in the
New York Times:

Cruise ships are required to report only crimes and other incidents that result in serious physical injury, which does not necessarily include rape. “Unless otherwise required to do so, Carnival [Cruise Line] leaves it to the individual to decide to report to authorities,” said Curtis Mase, a lawyer for Carnival.
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A second problem is that reporting may be discouraged by fear of secondary victimization. Parents may avoid reporting cases involving their children. This fear is quite real. Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s defense in a lawsuit following the rape of a 16-year-old girl in 1995 suggested the girl’s parents were to blame for the rape because they had failed to exercise reasonable care in protecting their daughter. Interestingly, in December

2000 the cruise line introduced its “New Adventure Ocean Dining Program” under which children sailing on any Royal Caribbean ship — there are on average 120,000 child passengers per year — can now dine with their favorite youth staff. Whether the company would now accept responsibility if something happened is unclear.

The first molestation case to receive considerable attention — it was the first time that a cruise line crew member had gone to trial — involved the rape in August 1989 of a 14-year-old girl on Carnival Cruise Line’s
Carnivale.
According to testimony at the trial, as the ship was returning to Miami from the Bahamas the 14-year-old girl went to the family’s cabin, while other family members remained on deck, at 5:30 a.m. to check on a suitcase. While she was in the elevator, a male crew member (a cleaner aboard the ship) kissed and fondled her. He then dragged her from the elevator to a cleaning closet and raped her on the floor. The girl picked the 32-year-old crewman, a Colombian national and father of two, out of a lineup. In February 1990 he was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
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Since then additional cases involving children have been reported. In 1991 a 12-year-old girl was fondled in the elevator of Carnival Cruise Line’s
Jubilee.
The perpetrator was never found. In 1992 a 15-year-old girl was raped on Windjammer Cruises’
Fantome.
At the time none of the cabins had doors that locked, so the crewman easily gained entry. A 1995 news article reported an incident in which a crewman broke into a cabin and raped two girls under the age of 10. A year earlier, in 1994, a crewman on Dolphin Cruises’
Seabreeze
molested a 13-year-old boy. In both of the latter cases, the offenders were identified but it is unclear whether they were prosecuted for the crime.

Between 1995 and 2000 the media reported at least eight cases involving children. A 16-year-old girl celebrating her birthday was raped on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s
Monarch of the Seas
after striking up a conversation with a bartender who later was her attacker.
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A 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl were both raped, in separate incidents several weeks apart in 1996, by the same crewman aboard Carnival Cruise Line’s
Fascination
— the latter case only came to light because of publicity from the first.
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A 13-year-old child was the victim of an attempted sexual assault by a 30-year-old passenger in 1997 aboard Premier Cruises’
Atlantica.
A 15-year-old boy was molested in 1998 by a bartender on a Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ship after he was served more than a dozen glasses of champagne and then taken to an empty cabin where he was stripped and sexually assaulted.
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And in 1999, a 13-year-old girl was assaulted by a waiter aboard Celebrity’s Cruises’
Galaxy,
and a 12-year-old boy was molested by a kitchen steward aboard a ship belonging to Norwegian Cruise Lines.

In October 2000 a 30-year-old youth coordinator on Norwegian Cruise Line’s
Norway
was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl who had come with him to his cabin. In this last case, the parents are suing Norwegian Cruise Line for not properly screening their employees: the youth coordinator had an arrest record that included indecent exposure.
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Because most passengers have no idea that this type of thing happens onboard cruise ships, many parents let their children run free. They naively believe there is nothing to fear — but a ship must be treated like any urban setting. As an FBI agent in Miami said, “Even out at sea, you can’t let your guard down.”

Sexual Assaults on Women

Sexual assaults are not limited to children. Again, it’s difficult to get a clear picture of the problem because it is so well concealed. Even though Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International together admitted to receiving reports of 166 sexual assaults in the five-year period from August 1994 through August 1998, only a few cases have been reported in the media. Next to none of them involved passenger-on-passenger assaults.
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An early glimpse of the problem is reflected in a letter to the editor of the
Los Angeles Times
in 1991.
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The writer, a 40-year-old woman who had recently returned from a cruise with her mother, warns single women about what awaits them on such a vacation. She describes being propositioned by her cabin steward and relentlessly pursued by a dining room waiter who wouldn’t

take no for an answer. Enjoyment of her cruise was compromised, and she was forced to remain in the company of others for self-protection. In her case, the experience was harassment. But sometimes it goes further.

In 1990 a passenger with Carnival Cruise Line accused her cabin steward of entering her cabin while she was asleep. He climbed on top of her and fondled her, but was scared away when the woman and her roommate both began screaming. The woman reported the incident to the ship’s safety officer, but nothing happened.

In 1992 a 31-year-old woman traveling on Carnival Cruise Line’s
Festivale
claimed that a waiter had sneaked into her cabin while she was getting dressed in the bathroom. She filed a report with the Barbados police, but again nothing happened. Neither the woman nor Carnival contacted the FBI. The woman launched a lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines, which was settled out of

court.
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In 1993 a 62-year-old woman on Seawind Cruise Line’s
Seawind Crown
was strangled to death following a failed rape attempt when she was using a public toilet at 9:00 a.m. The two crewmen were caught because they were seen throwing the body overboard as the ship left the Aruba harbor. They were detained and went to trial in Aruba.
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