A SENIOR officer says it is time to highlight the treatment women receive at sea, recounting how she was raped twice during her long career, amid constant objectification, sexual harassment and bullying.

“I’ve come to know far too many relevant stories just like mine, and it’s time to shine the light on them,” said the women, speaking anonymously to an audience at a charity event in London to discuss seafarers’ mental health via a pre-recorded message.

The powerful testimony, in which the officer revealed her shame led to self-harming and contemplating jumping overboard, aims to jolt senior maritime leaders and regulators into dealing more rigorously about mental health issues for the world’s 1.8m seafarers.

The Guild of Benevolence of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology held the event, at which former shipping minister and now deputy speaker of the House of Commons Nusrat Ghani chided relevant UN regulators for their failure to completely address sexual harassment and bullying at sea.

“I was a little bit crestfallen to see that in this space of mental health, sexual harassment, bullying and sexual assault, there’s been quite a lot of dialogue and agreements at a management level, but I couldn’t find any successful cases,” she said at the event.

“I couldn’t find any witness cases where men and women had come forward and said: ‘A situation that we were put in was out of our control. We went forward for some support, and it wasn’t career ending.’

“I just thought, oh my God, in how many years we’ve been speaking about this, obviously not enough, because we would have shed more light on it, and also the fact that didn’t have any positive cases.”

Both the International Maritime Organization and the International Labour Organisation, which oversee conventions and regulations relating to maritime labour at sea, hadn’t used their time effectively, she said.

Although they did “extraordinary work in this space”, they had failed to organise data collection and identify shortfalls and penalties, instead concentrating on developing action points that were already credible on land.

“Perhaps there’s an uncomfortability about talking about sexual harassment, especially if it’s male-on-male sexual harassment, but the more cases that we can expose, the sooner we can nip this in the bud and make sure that younger seafarers aren’t discouraged on coming on board a vessel for weeks, months, years at a time.

“There is a responsibility in all of us to talk about these tricky issues.”

A pre-recording of an anonymous male UK seafarer in his 60s who spent more than 30 years at sea was also played at the event in which he described how a senior cadet sexually assaulted him a month after joining his first vessel.

“This was a pattern repeated over a number of months, until I told him to stop,” the seafarer recounted.

“He did, but he was still a bully and horrible to work with.”

His experience chimed with the Danish government report that found those at sea aged under 30 were most vulnerable to bullying.

Young people were “resilient to a point” and needed to be shown compassion and leadership from older workers.

There is a growing but unco-ordinated body of evidence via seafarers’ charities, government reports, court cases and media reports about harassment and bullying, especially directed at women and the LGBTQ-plus community, and the impact on the mental health of seafarers.

Ghani referenced a report from the Danish government published in October 2023 that found that one-sixth of 3,500 seafarers polled had experienced or witnessed bullying or sexual harassment.

“If that was one sixth of a workforce in any sector on land that would be front and centre, and those companies would be hauled in front of different government departments and they would be challenged on how they’re able to conduct business. But somehow, when it’s a shipping company and it’s on board a vessel, we seem to have absolutely sea blindness in that space.”

Women comprise less than 2% of the workforce at sea, and the anonymous senior officer, who is still employed on a vessel, said she was constantly told that she did not belong.

“Another legacy I’ve carried through my whole career is feeling like I have less skills and less knowledge than my peers,” she said.

She also recalled that “a senior captain forced himself upon me, doing things that I can’t even face saying in this [recording] that have affected me my whole life”.

On that same trip, the chief engineer also harassed her.

“One day, while on my way to start my watch, I had to pass by the chief engineer’s cabin, only to find him lying naked and masturbating,” she said.

“He made a point to greet me ‘hello’ as I passed at the same time I passed his cabin every evening. The message was clear. I was uncomfortable as he wanted me to be,” she said.

She also battled “randy, drunken crew members who tried to stroke my legs” and unwelcome gifts, such as vibrators. She threw out her used sanitary products overboard at night when nobody was watching.

But she did recall a recent incident when a male junior officer spoke up for a woman’s place on board a ship and questioned prevailing attitudes.

“Ninety-eight percent of this industry is male and [we need] strong male allies,” she said.

“Having these conversations can bring about real change. We all need to be part of the change, and men have a powerful voice in creating a more inclusive maritime environment.”

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