The alleged gang rape of a fifteen year old girl on the Carnival Sensation cruise ship has received international coverage with news stations across the U.S. and even the U.K. press covering the disturbing story of how a 31 year old passenger reportedly bought alcohol for four underage boys and they took turns raping the girl during a drunken party.

The alleged adult rapist reportedly has a criminal record as reported by another website which contains unflattering photographs of the suspect (left). 

The story of the rape broke on the same day that Carnival stated that it would start introducing $50 a day "all-you-can-drink" booze packages on its cruise ships.

As we have learned by handling numerous rape cases on cruise ships, there is a direct correlation between lots of cruise booze and violence against women and children.  Its a real problem considering there are no independent police officers on cruise ships and the few security guards cannot effectively handle the problem.

A newspaper in Australia quoted me yesterday saying: ". . . we see a direct correlation between excess alcohol and fights in bars, drunken underage girls, sexual violence . . . dealing with drunken violence on cruise ship is a challenge as there are no police officers on board and security staff are often stretched to the limit. Encouraging more people to drink more alcohol . . . will lead to more crimes during cruises."

If you have any doubt that there is a problem with children being raped on cruise ships, click on the "sexual assault of minors" or "rape" categories to the left.  Most sexual assault cases are not reported because the cruise lines typically require the victims and their parents to sign confidentiality agreements. But one 16 year old girl, raped by a crew member on a Carnival cruise, refused to sign her rights away.

She had the strength to speak about her rape on ABC NEWS’ Nightline program "Sex Crimes on Cruise Ships."

Unfortunately, the Carnival rapist (right) was sentenced to only 37 months in jail, whereas the child has to deal with the trauma for the rest of her life.

Watch the video, which also features two clients of our firm testifying before our U.S. Congress about being raped on cruise ships. The cruise line rapists in those cases were not even prosecuted.  

 

Photo credit:

Top: FanDaily

Bottom: US Attorneys Office