Many girls 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 National Science Foundation, which oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, printed a report in 2022 during which 59% of girls stated they’d skilled harassment or assault whereas on the ice.

But the issue goes past the harassment itself, The Associated Press discovered. In reviewing courtroom data and inner communications, and in interviews with greater than a dozen present and former workers, the AP uncovered a sample of girls who stated their claims of harassment or assault have been minimized by their employers, usually resulting in them or others being put in additional hazard.

Several 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 came anywhere near me, I was going to start swinging at him,” Monahon stated. “I decided that I was going to survive.”

It seems the person had a prison file in New Zealand and had breached a safety order earlier than he’d deployed, a decide later discovered. Workers stated 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 man later left Antarctica.

In a recorded interview, a human assets consultant instructed Monahon that issues with the bottom’s consuming 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 girl who reported {that a} man in a senior position had groped her stated she was made to work alongside him once more.

Another lady stated she was raped, however the incident was later misclassified by the person’s employers as merely harassment.

AGENCIES RESPOND

The NSF stated it improved security in Antarctica final 12 months. It now requires Leidos, the prime contractor, to instantly report incidents of sexual assault and harassment. The NSF stated 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.

But the complaints of violence didn’t cease with the NSF report. Five months after its launch, a girl at McMurdo stated she’d been assaulted by a male colleague. His trial is scheduled for November.

Monahon stated she hopes her story prompts contractors in Antarctica to face extra accountability sooner or later.