London:
The head of the British Royal Navy has announced an investigation after several whistleblowers made allegations of widespread sexual harassment of female personnel on submarines.
The Daily Mail on Saturday published a story based on an interview with Sophie Brook, a former naval lieutenant, who described an “ongoing campaign of sexual bullying” in which male crew members put the names of female colleagues on a “rape list”.
The article also quoted two unnamed whistleblowers who backed her account.
First Sea Lord Ben Key, the professional head of the Navy, said in a statement to the newspaper that he had called for an investigation by his senior team and was “deeply disturbed” by the “appalling” allegations.
“Harassment and harassment have no place in the Royal Navy and will not be tolerated,” Key said, and anyone found guilty “will be held accountable,” regardless of rank.
Brook, 30, had been tipped to become a submarine commander but became suicidal and self-injured as a result of the culture on board and was eventually fired from the Navy.
The Royal Navy’s submarine service only started admitting women in 2011.
Male superiors routinely accosted her with sexual obscenity and stuffed their penises in her pocket, Brook said.
She learned she was number six on a list of female crew members who would be the first to be raped in the event of a disaster.
A married coworker exposed herself to her and another climbed into her bed as she slept and started kissing her, she said.
A woman who formally complained about naked photos of women being seen in a work area was “frozen” and unable to move on, Brook said.
She started self-harming when she was 21, two years after joining the Navy.
After she needed stitches for one injury, the doctor asked for her to be removed from her position, but she was immediately put on hold with “total responsibility” for the nuclear submarine, she said.
Emma Norton, director of the Center for Military Justice, a charity that provides legal aid to victims of harassment, told Sky News that only about 10 percent of women who experience severe bullying and harassment in the service file a formal complaint because “they don’t trust them.” that they will receive some form of justice or a fair trial”.
Norton said the Royal Navy had not responded to repeated recommendations for more independent monitoring of such complaints.
A retired naval admiral Chris Parry told the BBC: “Some of the sexualized behavior we see in the normal workplace is being transferred to submarines, as you would expect”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)