CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — Many ladies who work at McMurdo Station, the principle United States analysis base in Antarctica, say the remoted setting and macho tradition have allowed sexual harassment and assault to flourish.
The Nationwide Science Basis, which oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, revealed a report in 2022 through which 59% of ladies mentioned they’d skilled harassment or assault whereas on the ice.
However the issue goes past the harassment itself, The Related Press discovered. In reviewing court docket data and inside communications, and in interviews with greater than a dozen present and former staff, the AP uncovered a sample of ladies who mentioned their claims of harassment or assault had been minimized by their employers, typically resulting in them or others being put in additional hazard.
A number of Antarctic employees spoke publicly about their experiences to the AP for the primary time.
GRABBING A HAMMER
Mechanic Liz Monahon instructed the AP a person on the base threatened her in 2021, however her employers did little to guard her. So she grabbed a hammer and saved it on her always.
“If he got here anyplace close to me, I used to be going to start out swinging at him,” Monahon mentioned. “I made a decision that I used to be going to outlive.”
It seems the person had a prison file in New Zealand and had breached a safety order earlier than he’d deployed, a choose later discovered. Employees mentioned they took issues into their very own fingers and saved Monahon protected by sending her away from the bottom on a mission over the ocean ice. The person later left Antarctica.
In a recorded interview, a human assets consultant instructed Monahon that issues with the bottom’s ingesting tradition had been happening for years.
A PATTERN OF PROBLEMS
Monahon’s case wasn’t an anomaly. A meals employee in 2019 instructed her bosses she’d been sexually assaulted by a coworker. Two months later, the lady was fired.
In one other case, a lady who reported {that a} man in a senior function had groped her mentioned she was made to work alongside him once more.
One other girl mentioned she was raped, however the incident was later misclassified by the person’s employers as merely harassment.
AGENCIES RESPOND
The NSF mentioned it improved security in Antarctica final 12 months. It now requires Leidos, the prime contractor, to right away report incidents of sexual assault and harassment. The NSF mentioned it additionally created an workplace to take care of such complaints, supplied a confidential sufferer’s advocate, and established a 24-hour helpline.
Leidos instructed Congress in December it might set up peepholes on dorm room doorways, restrict entry to grasp keys that might open a number of bedrooms, and provides groups within the subject an additional satellite tv for pc telephone.
However the complaints of violence didn’t cease with the NSF report. 5 months after its launch, a lady at McMurdo mentioned she’d been assaulted by a male colleague. His trial is scheduled for November.
Monahon mentioned she hopes her story prompts contractors in Antarctica to face extra accountability sooner or later.