In the very masculine world of the merchant navy, the fight against gender-based and sexual violence encounters headwinds. On November 18, a student of the US Merchant Marine Academy, the American merchant marine school, revealed that she had been the victim, in 2021, of sexual harassment and touching during her training aboard theAlliance-Fairfax, a vehicle transport vessel, owned by the Danish shipowner Maersk.
The young woman, who is testifying under the name of “Midshipman Y”, decided to take the case to court, as had already done another student named Hope Hicks, who finally reached an agreement with the shipowner. Since 2016, Maersk has announced loud and clear that it is making every effort to ensure that such behavior does not occur.
In France too, the fight seems to be experiencing failures. At the end of November, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Maritime (ENSM), which trains merchant navy officers at four sites (Le Havre, Nantes, Saint-Malo and Marseille), canceled a training program devoted to the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence.
“A lot of misogyny”
François Lambert, the new director of ENSM since 1er September, criticizes the European Association against violence against women at work (AVFT), the organization chosen a few months earlier by its predecessor, Caroline Grégoire, its “activism” during training sessions that took place on October 6 and 18 on the campuses of Nantes, then Saint-Malo.
“There is a real need to feminize the profession and to combat sexual and gender-based violence, explains Mr. Lambert, but the trainers lacked pedagogy by not sufficiently taking into account the fact that the navy was a closed environment, with difficulties linked to good cohabitation. They attacked the sea shanties which must be overcome in time, but do not send anyone to prison. » So Kerchief, for example, a classic of the repertoire sung during multiple evenings, where the participants take up in chorus “bitch”after each verse?
Mr. Lambert had made his reservations known to the AVFT in two successive letters – that The world was able to consult – which prompted the association to suspend its program on November 8, until the situation clarified. “The suspension does not exist legally. It is not provided for in the contract. But I had a plan to stick to, so we turned to another training organization.”, decided the director of the ENSM, which has 1,200 students, 16% of whom are women. If the planned interview with the managers of the new organization goes smoothly, the sessions will begin on January 4.
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