A passenger is suing cruise line MSC Cruises, claiming she was sexually assaulted by a crew member on the MSC Meraviglia ship. On another boat, a man is said to have entered the ladies-only toilets to film. These huge ships are real cities where we find the old demons.
A trial was held for a first assault
According to the lawsuit, filed February 24, MSC Cruises “failed to provide a reasonably safe environment” for its passengers and failed to protect them from sexual assault.
The complainant, a 29-year-old woman from Saratoga Springs, Utah, was on a week-long cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida on February 5.
The lawsuit says an MSC bartender served drinks to the woman, her husband and four friends on the evening of February 9.
The woman, who is not named, and a friend asked the bartender for a nightcap around 2:30 a.m. when the bar was closing. The employee says he agreed and motioned for her to meet him on the other side of the bar and took her to a staff room.
According to the lawsuit, the woman followed him into the room, where the bartender began “aggressively kissing her” and “forced his penis into her mouth.” The woman’s husband and a friend searched for her and found her in the staff room “shocked and scared”.
The trial dissects a not very simple case
The lawsuit says the woman’s husband confronted the crew member, who the husband said apologized before security was alerted. The lawsuit says the woman then had a rape kit prepared at the ship’s medical center.
After reporting the incident, other crew members refused to take action against the bartender, according to the claim.
A man in the women’s restroom…
“This man was in the women’s bathroom,” the victim, identified only as Saja, captioned the disturbing clip on Tiktok. The sordid incident is said to have happened on board the MSC Meraviglia. The passenger shared a TikTok video on Feb. 27 in which she and staff members confronted the man, which garnered more than 10 million views. The employee can be heard saying he made a ‘mistake’ in the video. The horrified passenger claimed the man had locked himself in the adjoining toilet and appeared to be pointing a camera at her. Saja can be seen in distress motioning towards a toilet cubicle as she tells a man from the cleaning staff: ‘There’s someone lurking down there filming me. ” ” A man? asks the crew housekeeper, to which the petrified passenger replies, “Yeah, he’s a man!” »
MSC had previously had a problem with a crew member
MSC Cruises had fired another crew member weeks earlier after a passenger and staff caught it filming the passenger from a toilet cubicle.
The narrowness of the employee cabins …
Some current and former cruise ship employees have compared the ambiance of the staff cabins to that of a college dorm. And, like in college, sexual activity is fueled by frequent alcohol consumption.
Sex between employees is widespread. The permissive sexual culture on cruise ships can also lead to aggressive or inappropriate behavior. A former Royal Caribbean International employee said one of her Royal Caribbean managers made comments about her sexual orientation and criticized her for never changing her hairstyle.
