Maersk is being sued by a merchant navy cadet who said she was raped during at-sea training.
According to court documents seen by Insider, a cadet at the US Merchant Marine Academy claims she was raped by a Maersk first engineer while completing her mandatory-sea training.
It took me a long time to recover from everything that happened on that ship.
A detailed account of the alleged rape was posted on a website devoted to confronting sexual abuse in the maritime industry.
The suit was filed at the Supreme Court in Nassau County.
Maersk has zero tolerance for assault, harassment or any form of discrimination and takes allegations of sexual abuse very seriously but does not comment on ongoing litigation, according to a Maersk spokesman.
The first and second assistant engineers were fired for not cooperating. The captain was fired for violating its alcohol policy. It's not clear if the first engineer accused in the lawsuit is the same person as the first assistant engineer who was fired.
The company couldn't make any findings with respect to the rape allegation because it couldn't speak to any of the involved parties. When asked if it would take legal action, he didn't say anything.
A second suit by another cadet, who remains anonymous as "Midshipman Y," was due to be filed on Tuesday, but a spokesman for the lawyer said they had an issue and the complaint was being refiled.
According to a draft of the complaint seen by Insider, midshipman Y says that she was subjected to "extreme sexual harassment and repeated and unwanted physical touching" on the same ship where she says she was raped two years ago.
The USMMA is one of the seven national academies where the US trains its merchant navy.
Cadets who are trained in pairs for their mandatory training known as "Sea Year" are able to earn their sea legs and eventually work in the industry.
The complaint says that there was only one female on the ship. In front of the rest of the crew, she was subjected to sexual harassment from the beginning.
The crew had a heavy drinking session in August, despite strict Maersk rules against on board drinking. It said that the ship's strict command structure forced him to consume a number of shots of hard liquor before he passed out.
According to the complaint, the woman woke up naked in her room and found bloodied sheets and injuries all over her body. Hope was a virgin who was going to abstain from sex until she married.
Both in the complaint and her original account, she said she remembered being forcibly kissed by the first engineer and being on top of her.
She recalled that the First Engineer stood over her without his clothes on and forced his penis into her mouth, but she was unable to resist. The first engineer was aware of her intoxication.
According to the complaint, the First Engineer threatened to kill her if she reported the rape. She was surprised by the suggestion that she might want to make something work.
The ship was supposed to stay at sea for another 50 days.
"I felt like a zombie, I was just walking through day to day, trying to survive every single day, and that's how I felt," he said. I don't think I was in the right state of mind.
Crew members were required to take sexual assault and harassment training. According to the complaint, the other crew members were told to complete the training on their own.
It felt terrible, according to Hicks. I was away from the first engineer.
According to her lawyers, this is just one example of how careless Maersk is when it comes to cadet safety.
Sea Year was stopped in response to allegations of abuse. The document cited in the court filing was no longer on the USMMA website.
Satellite cellphones were issued to all cadet. The court documents say that Midshipman Y's phone was barely working.
Cadets still don't want to register official reports with the school or crew.
Senior crew are allowed to hold a master key to cadet private quarters, and security cameras don't always cover the hallways leading to cadets' quarters, according to the complaint.
According to the draft complaint, the midshipman began sleeping in the bathroom with a knife after being subjected to "sexualized jokes, sexual advances, and unwanted sexual touching" more than a dozen times.
According to Christine Dunn, lead counsel in both suits, Midshipman Y has taken a leave of absence from USMMA and was once hospitalized with a panic attack.
The trajectory of her future has changed as a result. She is suffering from it.
She said that even though the crew changes, it doesn't mean it won't happen to someone else. In order for change to happen, the culture needs to be changed.
A victim advocate is a student position at the academy that responds to sexual abuse. The scale of the problem opened up.
She said that she had all the young girls at her school come forward to her about sexual harassment. What this industry does to women is crazy.
Her approach to activist lawyer J. Ryan Melogy resulted in her story being published without her knowledge or consent.
The post was a bombshell, not only at the academy, but in the wider industry andvinced calls for reform from lawmakers including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
She said that the decision to go public has been simmering for a while.
She said that she's no longer scared to come forward with her name. I'm hoping that it will allow other people to come forward as well.
The abuse of Cadets goes out of the scope that you and I can even imagine.
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