High seas holidays in hell
After more than 160 reports of sexual assaults on cruise ships in the past two years, Matt Shand asks whether these trips are as safe as passengers like to think.
The first thing she saw when she came to was a man on top of her. Vision blurred from a spiked drink, she did not immediately register what was happening. She recognised the man, a fellow cruise passenger. He was the one who had bought her the drink.
In that moment, the New Zealander’s ‘‘trip of a lifetime’’ aboard a luxury cruise ship became a nightmare.
Her ordeal didn’t end there. She had to endure a seven-hour rape examination aboard the ship, while denied contact with her friends.
‘‘My holiday was over,’’ she says. ‘‘I thought my life was over.’’
She was then disembarked in Vanuatu, placed in a taxi and sent to a resort to spend a night alone before being flown back to New Zealand.
‘‘I was so scared and felt so alone, and the nightmare had only just begun.’’
The Kiwi woman, believed to be one of hundreds of people sexually assaulted on cruise ships over the past several years, shared her story with Mark Brimble, a campaigner for greater safety aboard the vessels.
Brimble set up a not-for-profit organisation, International Cruise Victim, after his ex-wife was found dead from an alleged date-rape drug overdose.
Diane Brimble, a 42-year-old Brisbane mother of three, died aboard the P&O cruise ship Pacific Sky in 2002 after she was given the drug GHB. A passenger was charged with manslaughter, but later convicted of supplying drugs. Her death triggered an examination of safety aboard cruise liners, and found practices were substandard.
Mark Brimble has been contacted by numerous New Zealanders with their own horror stories.
He says sexual assault is the most frequent offence aboard cruise ships, and only a fraction of crime is reported. In December, a man was charged with sexual violation and rape of a cruise ship worker while a boat was docked in Dunedin. A Sydney man is also facing charges of sexually assaulting another passenger between Tauranga and Dunedin in January.
There have also been 303 reports of people falling overboard since 2000, equivalent to one person every two to three weeks.
Although some are accidents or thought to be suicide, Brimble believes there is more foul play involved than is being reported.
He says cruise ship companies sweep incidents under the rug. ‘‘There is no law in any country, that requires a record to be kept of all incidents,’’ he says.
He believes some victims of crime don’t always report the incidents out of fear of being tracked down and thrown overboard.
‘‘I do believe that is a factor in reporting crimes,’’ he says. ‘‘If a complaint is made against someone, they will still be on that ship, and there will be a fear of being tracked down.
‘‘In a way, it is the perfect place to commit such a crime – the body is gone and so is the evidence.’’
Globally, these floating cities are packed with 26 million passengers each year, including an estimated 350,000 who will be heading to New Zealand’s shores in 2018.
Cruise Association NZ chief executive Kevin O’Sullivan says the industry contributes at least $640 million to New Zealand’s economy each year and this is set to rise.
And cruise ship companies say they have invested substantial amounts of money in improving safety.
Royal Caribbean, a major cruise ship company, says the safety and security of all its guests and crew members is its highest priority, but it would not discuss security arrangements.
‘‘Our guests should be very comfortable with the security measures they see during their cruise vacation,’’ it says.
‘‘These include the screening of 100 per cent of all luggage, carry-ons and provisions coming onto our ships.’’
Cruise ships employ security guards to keep guests safe, but there is no police force on the high seas. The closest thing to a judiciary is the ship’s captain who can confine people to quarters.
It is the flag-state that ultimately has jurisdiction over what happens on ships at sea. Many cruise ships fly a flag of convenience, choosing countries with fewer tax and labour laws.
For the passenger, this means you might be sitting off the coast of New Zealand or Australia, but the closest police officer able to respond to your complaint is sitting at a desk in the Bahamas, Panama or Bermuda.
And just like on land, there is also a criminal element at sea. Several people are arrested each year on drug-related charges, either through supplying fellow passengers or trying to smuggle them ashore. There are violent assaults and brawls like the ones on a Carnival Line Cruise that resulted in 23 people having to be removed.
Data compiled by Cruisejunkie.com, which collates newspaper articles and passenger reports about cruise crime around the world, show there were 161 reported sexual assaults on cruise ships in the past two years. As well as this there was one murder, five suspicious deaths, 24 violent assaults, two kidnappings, six thefts of more than $10,000 and two people just ‘‘vanished’’. These figures do not include the drug busts from smuggling operations.
In the United States, authorities have upped their game, with the FBI now investigating any and all incidents against American citizens, no matter where the cruise ship was located at the time. But New Zealand citizens do not receive equivalent protection.
However, jurisdiction will come into play when acts of terrorism or money laundering are conducted in a specific country’s waters.
Brimble says New Zealand citizens assume that New Zealand law will apply. ‘‘It simply doesn’t,’’ he says.
‘‘Let’s say a New Zealander causes some trouble on board a cruise ship and the captain decides to drop them off at the next port, they will have to fend for themselves in a foreign country.’’
The laws followed on the ship might not be the same as the country you left, so Brimble has this advice for passengers: Look to your own safety.