Identity Protected
Date: November 27, 2007
Cruise Bruise: Rape Of A Child
Bruise Location: Caribbean
Age: 12
Home Town: Tennessee
Cruise Line: Carnival Cruise Line
Ship: Victory
Details:
Little Girl Raped At Sea
Child Raped After Magic Show By Predator
Carnival Victory - November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving weekend 2007 was no time for a Tennessee family to be thankful. Unless you can consider that instead of a child being raped, she could have been raped and thrown overboard, as another girl said the male passenger threatened her and another passenger.
On November 27, 2007 the third night into a Eastern Caribbean Cruise, the little girl from Tennessee was cruising with her Grand-mother aboard the Carnival Cruise Line, Victory ship.
The child went to a magic show for kids with her grandmother waiting right outside for her to come out. She entered the magic show at 2200 hours and left at 2315 hours.
When she came out, she was with another little girl, Jennifer, and asked her grandma is she could walk her to the other girl's cabin. It was a short distance, so the grand-mother said fine, go ahead, but come straight back.
When the grand-daughter had not come back a half hour later, the grand-mother went to a public area of the ship and flagged down security. He instructed her to check her cabin to see if the child had gone there, but there was no sign of her.
The grand-mother then ran back to security, and an aggressive ship-wide search was launched. The girl was found, and thankfully alive, at 0130 hours, over two hours after she disappeared, but it was not a pretty sight.
The girl was found sprawled out on the floor, wearing boys clothing, her own clothing missing, she was drunk and had been raped, left on the floor in a hallway.
The girl told security she had been taken into the room of male passenger, age 23 and raped. A rape kit was completed, and the alleged crime scene was sealed off, as the FBI was notified of the crime.
Although Carnival Cruise Lines reportedly offered to fly the grand-mother and grand-daughter home from St. Maarten, the grandmother says she refused because an FBI agent in Miami told her not to leave the ship. There is a major conflict in policy.
The day before, the same 23-year old male passenger propositioned another girl, age 14, and threatened to throw her boyfriend overboard for interfering with the attempt to lure the girl to his cabin.
“Carnival Cruise Lines is a signatory to the cruise industry’s Zero Tolerance for Crime Policy,” Carnival Cruise Line spokes person Jennifer de la Cruz said. “The safety and security of guests and crew is our number one priority. Any allegation of crime aboard our vessels is taken seriously and reported to appropriate law enforcement authorities.”
Is that so? Not according to some of the alleged crew cases we have on file here
Now, here is the really sad part of this case.
The crying grand-mother said that, if this would have happened anywhere other than a cruise ship, this guy would already be in custody.
"They don't tell you how different the rules and the laws are when you're on a cruise. And they don't tell you how dangerous it can be for a kid to go below deck. They need to warn people."
The grand-mother says they had never cruised before, and she will never cruise with a child with her again. She has been emotionally broken up over this entire incident and is in counseling, as is the child.
The FBI is "investigating". This incident took place three and half months ago, and there has been NO arrest to date. When will I have your attention, and when will you become outraged enough to write a long list of politicians begging them to do something?
That is why Cruise Bruise is here. Please tell everyone you see and know about Cruise Bruise. The only way to stop these horrible, horrible incidents is to educate the public. I am missing my goals when there are Americans who are still unaware of the dangers at sea, especially for a child.
UPDATE: March 12, 2008
In doing some further research, I have found things have not been great on Carnival Victory for a long time. In a rare move, I am linking to another site, because it is a real eye-opener into life on Carnival Victory. Children drunk aboard the ship, roaming gangs of thugs, activities for children inadequate, small children roaming the ship in the wee hours of the morning, tired, wanting to go to sleep. Clearly this ship is for a certain sector of society. If you do not fall within that 'sector', you will want to avoid the ship. As spring break approaches and summer vacations, I want to make sure that EVERY adult sailing on that particular ship reads this story.
