Sexual assault, harassment flourishing in Antarctica, say women who work there – National | 24CA News
The howling winds and perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter have been easing to a frozen spring when mechanic Liz Monahon at McMurdo Station grabbed a hammer.
If these in cost weren’t going to guard her from the person she feared would kill her, she figured, she wanted to guard herself. It wasn’t like she might escape. They have been all caught there collectively on the ice.
So, she saved the hammer together with her always, both looped into her Carhartt overalls or tucked into her sports activities bra.
“If he came anywhere near me, I was going to start swinging at him,” Monahon says. “I decided that I was going to survive.”
Monahon, 35, is one in all many ladies who say the remoted surroundings and macho tradition on the United States analysis centre in Antarctica have allowed sexual harassment and assault to flourish.
The National Science Foundation, the federal company that oversees the U.S. Antarctic Program, revealed a report in 2022 during which 59 per cent of girls stated they’d skilled harassment or assault whereas on the ice, and 72 per cent of girls stated such behaviour was an issue in Antarctica.
But the issue goes past the harassment, The Associated Press discovered. In reviewing court docket information and inner communications, and in interviews with greater than a dozen present and former staff, 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.
In one case, a lady who reported a colleague had groped her was made to work alongside him once more. In one other, a lady who advised her employer she was sexually assaulted was later fired. Another girl stated that bosses on the base downgraded her allegations from rape to harassment. The AP usually doesn’t determine those that say they’ve been sexually assaulted except they publicly determine themselves.
McMurdo Station pictured from above.
National Science Foundation through AP
The complaints of violence didn’t cease with the NSF report. Five months after its launch, a lady at McMurdo advised a deputy U.S. marshal that colleague Stephen Bieneman pinned her down and put his shin over her throat for a couple of minute whereas she desperately tried to speak that she couldn’t breathe.
Bieneman pleaded not responsible to misdemeanour assault. He was fired and despatched again to the U.S., court docket paperwork present, and his trial is scheduled for November. His lawyer, Birney Bervar, stated in an e mail to the AP that it was “horseplay” initiated by the girl and the proof didn’t help “an assault of the nature and degree she described.”
The NSF report triggered a Congressional investigation. In a written response to Congress that’s contradicted by its personal emails, Leidos, the prime contractor, stated it acquired “zero allegations” of sexual assault in Antarctica through the 5 years ending April 2022.
Persisting abuse
Kathleen Naeher, the chief working officer of the civil group at Leidos, advised a congressional committee in December that they’d set up peepholes on dorm room doorways, restrict entry to grasp keys that might open a number of bedrooms and provides groups within the area an additional satellite tv for pc telephone.
Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., stated the proposed fixes left him flabbergasted.
“This should have been done before we sent anyone down to Antarctica,” he stated on the listening to.
Monahon and all however one of many staff quoted on this story are talking publicly for the primary time. Trapped in one of the crucial distant spots on Earth, the ladies say they have been largely pressured to fend for themselves.
“No one was there to save me but me,” Monahon says. “And that was the thing that was so terrifying.”
Monahon believes she solely escaped bodily hurt in Antarctica due to her colleagues, not administration.
Liz Monahon standing on an ice shelf in November 2021.
Liz Monahon through AP
She met Zak Buckingham in 2021 at a lodge in Christchurch, New Zealand, the place McMurdo staff have been quarantining towards COVID-19 earlier than going to Antarctica. It could be Monahon’s second stint in Antarctica, a spot that had fascinated her since her childhood half a world away in upstate New York.
At the lodge, Monahon says, male colleagues bothering her and a buddy backed off when Buckingham — a plumber and newbie boxer from Auckland, New Zealand — sat with them.
Buckingham, now 36, was intimidating and a bit wild, however humorous and charming. One evening, Monahon says, she and Buckingham attached.
What Monahon didn’t know was that Buckingham had a historical past of what a decide described as alcohol-related felony offending in New Zealand.
Three months earlier than deploying, Buckingham breached a safety order taken out by his former accomplice and the mom of his three kids, in keeping with court docket information the AP obtained after petitioning a New Zealand decide. He’d texted his ex-partner demanding oral intercourse. She advised him to cease being inappropriate.
“No, I will not stop being inappropriate,” he’d replied, and demanded oral intercourse once more, in keeping with the decide’s findings. She once more advised him to cease. He responded, in keeping with the information: “You need to be f—– like a slut.”
Per week later, he despatched her 18 texts, court docket information present. She warned him she’d name the police.
“Continue to threaten me and you’ll need to,” he’d replied.
Antarctica’s historical ice sheet and remoteness make it superb for scientists learning every part from the earliest moments of the universe to modifications within the planet’s local weather.
The inhabitants at McMurdo, the hub of U.S. operations, often swells from 200-300 within the southern winter to over 1,000 in the summertime. Typically, round 70 per cent are males.
Funded and overseen by the NSF, the U.S. Antarctic Program is run by a tangle of contractors and subcontractors, with billions of {dollars} at stake. Since 2017, Leidos has held the principle contract, now price over US$200 million per 12 months. Subcontractor PAE, which employs most of the base’s staff, was purchased final 12 months by the federal government providers big Amentum.
There isn’t any police presence or jail at McMurdo and regulation enforcement falls to a sworn on-site deputy U.S. marshal.
‘Zero tolerance’
Buckingham was employed by PAE. Amentum didn’t reply to questions from the AP. Leidos Senior Vice President Melissa Lee Dueñas stated it conducts background checks on all its staff.
“Our stance on sexual harassment or assault couldn’t be more clear: we have zero tolerance for such behavior,” Dueñas stated in an e mail. “Each case is thoroughly investigated.”
The NSF and Leidos declined to reply questions on Buckingham or different circumstances. Leidos stated sharing particular particulars wasn’t at all times applicable or useful.
The NSF advised the AP it improved security in Antarctica final 12 months. The company now requires Leidos to right away report any vital well being and security incidents, together with sexual assault and harassment, it stated in an announcement. The NSF stated it additionally created an workplace to cope with such complaints, offered a confidential sufferer’s advocate and established a 24-hour helpline.
On the ice, with restricted choices for socializing, many head to one in all McMurdo’s two most important bars: Southern Exposure or Gallagher’s.
Neither has home windows, staff say, they usually odor of physique odour and a long time of stale beer that has seeped into the ground. In the summer season, when the solar shines all evening, folks stroll out of the bars and are dazzled by the sunshine.
One evening at Southern Exposure, Monahon advised the AP, Buckingham started laughing with buddies about who was going to sleep together with her and her buddy. Next factor, he was brow to brow with one other man, she says. Buckingham, reached by telephone in New Zealand, declined to remark and hung up.
Monahon says she repeatedly advised Buckingham she didn’t wish to communicate with him. Soon after, she heard Buckingham was indignant at her.
Worried, she says, she advised PAE’s human assets she feared for her security. They took no motion. Per week later, Buckingham rushed as much as her in Gallagher’s, shaking with anger, shouting and threatening her, she says.
“You’ve been talking s— about my mother,” he yelled at her, she says, leaving her baffled. “People who talk s— about my mother deserve to die.”
Monahon says she was shocked to the core. “Snitches will get stitches,” she says Buckingham snarled as others intervened.
Cameron Dailey-Ruddy, who bartended at Gallagher’s, witnessed the commotion. He ordered everybody however Monahon to depart and referred to as 911, which connects to the station firehouse. From the dispatcher, Dailey-Ruddy obtained the numbers for the Leidos station supervisor and PAE’s HR consultant and requested them to return to the bar.
“It was kind of an open secret at that point that that guy had been harassing her,” stated Dailey-Ruddy. He added that Buckingham was on the bars most nights, typically drank in public areas and harassed girls.
Monahon says the managers introduced her to a secret room and advised her she might skip work the following day.
It was the final time she would really feel supported by administration.
After an evening in her new room, Monahon met with PAE’s HR consultant, Michelle Izzi.
Monahon claims Izzi discouraged her from reporting what occurred to the deputy U.S. marshal, partly as a result of it might create jurisdictional complications and even a global drawback, as Buckingham was a New Zealand citizen. Monahon additionally says Izzi advised her she wanted to fastidiously contemplate how submitting costs may have an effect on her personally and impression the whole U.S. Antarctic Program.
In a later recorded assembly, Izzi denied that she discouraged Monahon and stated she had the truth is instructed her to name the marshal. Izzi didn’t reply to the AP’s requests for remark.
The subsequent evening, Dailey-Ruddy says, Buckingham was again on the bar. The evening after, in keeping with one other particular person accustomed to the scenario, Buckingham obtained right into a bodily altercation with one other man.
Dailey-Ruddy wasn’t shocked by the shortage of motion towards Buckingham.
“It seemed like par for the course in terms of the culture, and sexual harassment and how women’s safety was addressed on the station,” he says.
Meanwhile, Monahon had taken the machinist’s hammer to defend herself. In an announcement to PAE’s HR division, she wrote: “Zak Buckingham is a danger to me. He has threatened my life. He is capable of hurting me and he wants to hurt me. … I have been living in fear for the last two days.”
With her employers doing nothing to deal with her issues, Monahon’s rapid boss and associates got here up with their very own plan, in keeping with two staff accustomed to the scenario.
Monahon was advised to pack her baggage, and the following morning joined a gaggle attempting to navigate a protected route throughout the ocean ice over eight days to resupply a tiny U.S. outpost. The crossing is dangerous as a result of the ice can crumble within the spring.
“To protect her, they put her in a dangerous situation,” stated Wes Thurmann, a hearth division supervisor who had labored in Antarctica yearly since 2012.
But all of them felt it was safer than her remaining at McMurdo.
Thurmann, who was additionally notified when Dailey-Ruddy referred to as 911, says he was launched to McMurdo’s misogynistic tradition when a gaggle of males recited a listing of girls they thought-about targets for intercourse. Often, Thurmann says, the NSF and Antarctic contractors blamed such habits on alcohol.
But the bosses wouldn’t ban booze, he says, as a result of it might make deployments much less enticing.
The Ice Allies
Monahon’s disaster on the ice wasn’t an anomaly. In November 2019, one other incident involving a meals employee pushed the NSF to launch its investigation. The meals employee didn’t reply to a request for remark, however her case is printed in inner emails obtained by the AP.
The girl advised her bosses she’d been sexually assaulted by a coworker. Her efficiency was subsequently criticized by a supervisor, who was additionally the girlfriend of the accused man. Two months later, she was fired.
Many of the girl’s colleagues have been outraged. Julie Grundberg, then the McMurdo space supervisor for Leidos, repeatedly emailed her issues to her superiors in Denver.
“The fact that we haven’t come out with some sort of public statement is making the community trust our organization even less,” Grundberg wrote.
Supervisor Ethan Norris replied: “We need your help to keep this calm and be a neutral party as you have only one side of the story at this point.”
Norris didn’t reply to a request for remark from the AP.
The case prompted a few of the girls to kind their very own help group, Ice Allies. More than 300 folks signed a petition calling for higher methods for dealing with sexual assaults.
The meals steward settled a wrongful termination declare for an undisclosed quantity, folks accustomed to the scenario advised the AP. Leidos later fired Grundberg, in a transfer many staff imagine was retaliatory.
Another meals steward, Jennifer Sorensen, advised the AP she was raped at McMurdo in 2015. Initially, she didn’t inform anybody.
“On station, I had no advocate to speak on behalf of my needs and protection, no jail to protect me from my rapist, and no knowledge of any present law enforcement personnel,” Sorensen stated in a written account to the AP.
Still haunted 21 months later, Sorensen wrote to the person’s employer, GHG Corp., about what had occurred. GHG later wrote again that it had investigated her claims with Leidos and wouldn’t rent the person once more.
“We have concluded that you were a victim of sexual harassment,” wrote GHG President Joseph Willhelm.
Jennifer Sorensen in Minneapolis, U.S. in May 2023.
Jennifer Sorensen through AP
Sorensen says it was shameful that GHG and Leidos downgraded what she says was rape to harassment. GHG didn’t reply to a request for remark. Sorensen additionally contacted the FBI, which didn’t file felony costs and refused to launch particulars of its investigation to the AP.
Britt Barquist, who labored as foreperson of the gasoline division, advised the AP she was attending a security briefing with co-workers in 2017 when a person in a senior position reached beneath the desk and squeezed her higher leg.
“It was a lingering hand on the inside of my thigh, like as close as you can get to just grabbing my actual crotch,” Barquist says.
Her boss on the time, Chad Goodale, advised the AP he noticed what occurred and referred to as his supervisor. He stated the end result was the person was taken off a joint undertaking and advised to keep away from contact with Barquist. Yet upon returning to Antarctica in 2021, Barquist says, she was pressured to work with the person once more.
Britt Barquist in Christchurch, New Zealand in February 2023.
Britt Barquist through AP
“It was humiliating. And awful,” she says. “I would try to not make eye contact with him, or acknowledge him at all. … Towards the end, he would talk to me about things, and I would just be wanting to throw up.”
When Barquist returned to Antarctica final 12 months, she took a job as a cook dinner, working alongside her husband at a tiny satellite tv for pc camp slightly than at McMurdo.
“I just wish I had been more protected,” she says.
Why does abuse occur in Antarctica?
Shortly earlier than Monahon returned from her expedition, Buckingham was taken to a aircraft to go house early. The girl who usually drives folks to the airfield refused to move him.
“With my supervisor, we just decided it’s not safe, and station management can drive him out themselves,” says Rebecca Henderson.
Izzi, PAE’s HR consultant, referred to as Monahon into a gathering. Izzi’s superior, Holly Newman, was on the telephone in Denver. Monahon recorded the dialog.
“The investigation was completed. We took appropriate action,” Newman says within the recording. She doesn’t specify what motion was taken aside from to say the particular person was not on the ice. She provides that typically they get experiences that aren’t true.
Newman couldn’t be reached for remark.
In the recording, Newman then says issues with alcohol and other people “hurting other people” have been occurring in Antarctica since “way before” she first visited in 2015.
“Why does it happen? Why doesn’t it stop?” Newman asks. “Those are big questions and there are not really any answers that I sit on that are satisfactory yet.”
In March 2022, Buckingham was sentenced to 100 hours of group service and 10 months of supervision after pleading responsible to 2 costs of breaching a safety order for his ex-partner.
“This is … the first time you have been before the court on any offending of this nature,” Judge Kevin Glubb concluded. “It has to be the last, Mr. Buckingham, you understand that? You come back again, all bets are off.”
Buckingham by no means confronted any authorized motion or penalties for what Monahon stated occurred in Antarctica. He is now residing again in New Zealand.
Monahon hopes her story prompts the contractors in Antarctica to face extra accountability. And she needs the NSF to do greater than doubtlessly change Leidos because the lead contractor when its contract expires in 2025.
“What are they going to do to make sure that this next contractor doesn’t do the same thing?” she asks.
Monahon was decided to maintain working at Antarctica and returned in 2022 however has determined to skip this season.
“It’s that mentality of don’t let them win,” she says. “But I do think they are winning right now.”
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If you or somebody you already know is experiencing abuse or is concerned in an abusive scenario, please go to the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for assist. They are additionally reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
