The American Club offers resources to raise awareness of sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH) onboard and provide tools to help ensure a safe and healthy environment for all seafarers.
According to the American Club, recent years have seen an increasing awareness worldwide of violence and harassment occurring onboard ships, including sexual harassment, bullying and sexual assault, which compound already challenging working conditions. As the Club explains, shipboard sexual harassment may not start with comments or actions that are immediately recognizable as inappropriate.
But when these seemingly benign actions escalate, they create the opportunity for an uncomfortable, improper, and unprofessional shipboard environment. Recognizing the signs and signals of escalating workplace sexual harassment and knowing how to proactively address it on board requires training.
In this context, the Club has created a dedicated webpage on the Club’s website addressing SASH and providing links to relevant resources.
To remind, the US Coast Guard has released policies to provide guidance on implementation of several of the new laws. The laws aim to enhance crew safety on certain commercial vessels and to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct, which includes sexual assault and sexual harassment, and harassment within the maritime industry.
