Maersk Suspends Five Officers Over Alleged Rape of Cadet Aboard Ship

The U.S. Maritime Administration, which oversees the academy, said in a statement that it was aware of the rape allegation and that it had sent the blog post to the Coast Guard Investigative Service. “We have zero tolerance for sexual assault and sexual harassment at the MMA and in the maritime industry,” the statement said.

Both the Coast Guard and the academy, which is based in Kings Point, N.Y., on Long Island outside New York City, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The Merchant Marine Academy is a federal service academy that educates cadets to serve both in the military and commercial marine transportation.

The woman was a cadet training on the Maersk-operated ship in 2019 as part of her studies at the academy, people familiar with the matter said.

Maersk said it was looking into the woman’s allegations and cooperating with the academy and government bodies investigating the matter. It said the five crew members, including the ship’s captain, would remain suspended until all probes are completed and that it had asked to speak with the cadet. The names of the crew members weren’t released.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened. We take this situation seriously and are disturbed by the allegations made in this anonymous posting which has only recently been brought to our attention,” Bill Woodhour, CEO of Maersk Line, the company’s U.S. subsidiary, said in a statement. “We do everything we can to ensure that all of our workplace environments, including vessels, are a safe and welcoming workplace and we’ve launched a top to bottom investigation.”

The cadet wrote in the blog post, published on Sept. 27, that after leaving a Middle East port on the unnamed Maersk ship at night, the vessel’s engineers forced her to drink shot after shot of heavy liquor and that she woke up naked the next morning in a panic.

The post was published by Maritime Legal Aid & Advocacy, a nonprofit organization aiming to eliminate sexual assault and harassment on commercial vessels. The nonprofit has posted in recent years at least 50 allegations of sexual assault or harassment against women working on ships. The cadet couldn’t be reached for comment, and the nonprofit said she had no comment beyond her blog post.

The cadet, who says she is now a senior at the academy, wrote in the blog post that she was on her Sea Year, a requirement for cadets to become naval officers or work as licensed mariners on ships moving cargo and passengers around the globe. The academy describes the cadet’s time at sea as their “first real opportunity for self-reliance.”

The shipping industry is overwhelmingly male, and it isn’t uncommon that a single female works for months on a ship among 20 or more male colleagues.

The academy’s Sea Year was suspended in 2016 amid sexual assault and harassment allegations from female cadets. The academy and Maritime Administration conducted a review of the program. It started again a year later, after the school and the U.S. government introduced new, zero-tolerance rules for sexual harassment. The academy didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether action was taken against any individuals as part of the review.

In a separate case, the U.S. government paid $1.4 million to settle allegations by a former member of the academy’s men’s soccer team who said he was forcibly restrained and assaulted in 2016. The Maritime Administration, which is a Transportation Department sub agency, didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing in the settlement.