A sixteen-year-old girl aboard a Carnival cruise ship was allegedly sexually assaulted by another teenager who was arrested by the Royal Bahamian Police in Nassau, Bahamas, according to a Bahamian newspaper. The incident occurred on the Carnival Sunrise on December 29, 2025.
On January 2, 2026, a Bahamian judge granted the assailant an emergency bail of $9,900 and ordered the minor’s movements tracked by an ankle bracelet. The assailant, who was not identified because he is a juvenile, is a 17-year-old from Minnesota.
The cruise left Miami on December 27, 2025, on a four day itinerary to the Bahamas. The alleged sexual assault apparently occurred after the Carnival ship sailed to Bahamian waters. The Carnival ship called on Freeport, Celebration Key (Carnival’s new private destination) and Nassau.
The Nassau Guardian reported on the incident and stated: “the mother of the female victim informed police that she and her husband had escorted their children to their cabin on deck six and went to the casino. While the parents were at the ship’s casino, they were alerted by security personnel that their daughter had been sexually assaulted. The teen girl, present with her parents, reported that on December 29th, around 8:00 p.m., she encountered a male passenger on deck nine who invited her to his cabin. She agreed to the invitation but reported that once inside, the male made unwelcome advances and sexually assaulted her without her consent.”
It is unusual for the Royal Bahamian Police Department to take the lead in the arrest of a passenger for the rape of another cruise ship passenger on a U.S.-based cruise ship. Law enforcement in the Bahamas can prosecute the crime but typically the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would lead the investigation and prosecution as it involves two Americans. The FBI has “special maritime jurisdiction” that gives them jurisdiction over crime that occur on cruise ships around the world that involve US victims or assailants.
In any event, we are not aware of a jury in the Bahamas ever successfully convicting either a crew member or cruise passenger accused of sexual assault on a cruise ship.
Carnival Cruise Line is the leader among cruise lines in the number of sexual assaults and rapes on both a total number and on a per capita basis. Through three quarters in 2025, Carnival has reported an average of three sexual crimes a month (Q1: 8, Q2: 9, and Q3: 12). Carnival Cruise Line also has been by far the leader in the most number of shipboard physical assaults with serious injuries. Since 2022, 59% (44 out of 74) of reported physical assaults occurred on Carnival ships. This is largely due to the excessive amount of alcohol sold to passengers on the short, cruise-booze type of partying environment promoted on Carnival cruise ships.
Approximately one-third (33%) of sexual assault victims on cruise ships are minors, based on a 2013 congressional report and 2016 FBI data. Reports of sexual assaults and rapes have doubled in the last ten years. Although the Cruise Vessel Security Act of 2010 (CVSSA) mandated cruise ships to report certain crimes to the FBI, the cruise industry was successful in concealing when the victim is a minor.
We previously wrote about how two stepbrothers raped a woman aboard the Carnival Sunrise on December 15, 2025.
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