Are sexual crimes committed by cabin attendants against women in their cruise ship cabins “shocking?”

If you define “shocking” as “disturbing” or “upsetting,” of course.

But if you define “shocking” as “unforeseeable” or “unpredictable,” not at all. Who’s the most likely sexual predator on a cruise ship?  A male cabin attendant. What’s the most likely location of a sexual assault? A passenger’s cabin. What’s the most likely way that a cabin attendant gets into the passenger cabin?  By using the master key card.

99% of cabin attendants are honest, law-abiding and hard-working men and women from around the world who are trying to support their families back home. But in our experience, the majority of sexual assaults on ships have been committed by male attendants who enter the passenger cabins and attack women and children.

Over four years ago, I wrote that “in our experience, the crew member most likely to harass or assault a passenger is a male cabin attendant in his late 20’s or early 30’s.” I warned women to be on the outlook of a male cabin attendant who is “most likely to use his pass key and enter a woman’s cabin at night.”

After the vicious attack by HAL cabin attendant Ketut Pujayasa, age 28, against the passenger on the Nieuw Amsterdam, Holland America Line issued a PR statement stating that that it was shocked” by the crime.  But the choice of the word “shock” is intended by the HAL lawyers and risk management department to suggest that the crime was unforeseeable and, as such, it can’t be liable for the rape.

The word is also intended to convey to the public that things like this just don’t happen on HAL cruises. Saying the crime is “rare” is the favorite cruise line defense. Better yet, the cruise lines say that sexual assault is so rare and unpredictable that it’s just “shocking.”

A couple of years ago, a young college student we represented was raped by a cabin attendant after the cruise ship sailed to Nassau. The cabin attendant who attacked her was in his late 20’s. He entered the young girl’s cabin when she was asleep by using his key card after hours.

The young woman’s case was presented to our U.S. Congress. The Congressmen and Congresswomen were asked the rhetorical question why would a cruise line staff a woman’s cabin with a male cabin attendant in his 20’s? Why would a cruise line permit such a cabin attendant have a master key card that would permit him to enter a woman’s cabin 24 hours a day?  Why didn’t the cruise assign women cabin attendants to clean women’s cabins? Why didn’t the cruise line deactivate the cabin attendant’s key card after hours?

Simple steps like these were suggested long ago as a way for the cruise lines to avoid an entirely predictable crime like this. But instead of learning a lesson, the cruise lines engaged in its usual PR statements: “crime is rare” or “our employees are carefully vetted” or “the safety of our passengers is our highest priority” or other PR poppycock.

So what did the woman staying in her cabin on Nieuw Amsterdam have to contend with on Valentine’s Day? A male cabin attendant in his late 20’s, responsible for a woman’s cabin, who had access to a master key card.

It was a disaster waiting to happen.

Little did the victim know.

When will the cruise lines take the key cards away from the male cabin attendants?  When will the cruise lines warn their female guests that crimes like this have occurred over and over?

Do we really have to listen to cruise companies like HAL pretend that they are “shocked?”

 

Photo Credit:

Top: AP Photo/Marianne Armshaw via CTV

Bottom: CNN New Day