It was bad enough we had to navigate through the folded wheelchairs and dirty food trays that crowded the narrow corridors of the Sapphire Princess. And seeing a stroller in front of our rooms from approximately 200 feet (60 meters) away seemed like just another irritation … that is, until a closer look revealed something horrifying.
Lo and behold, the stroller contained an infant, sound asleep, unattended … alone! We couldn’t believe our eyes. We don’t know the first thing about maritime law, but we knew that leaving a baby unattended in a hallway with intoxicated passengers roaming freely about was criminal.
Anything could have happened. In a split second, any stranger could have taken that baby could into a room at any time. Leaving a baby or young child unattended is a disaster waiting to happen.
Our protective instincts kicked in as we worried about all the horrible things that could have happened to that baby. We banged on the door hoping to find the parents when, in retrospect, we should have immediately phoned security in order to help establish a record of the timeline that baby was left alone.
The mother answered the door looking disheveled and tried to defend the situation, saying, “I was listening.”
We can’t fathom how this mother could disregard the endless possibilities of what could have happened by putting her baby in harm’s way.
For example, explain to me how, if she could hear her baby, why she failed to hear our gasps of “Oh my God, there is a baby asleep in the stroller!” And once the baby had disappeared, what would there be to listen for? Did she really think that kidnappers and pedophiles make a lot of noise? Could she not have considered even the possibility that some intoxicated passenger might kick the stroller out of their way or trip and fall over it?
Upset as could be, we phoned for the head purser but the staff told us that he could not be contacted until morning. We explained that he would take our call, but they refused to call the management. We were told we would have to wait until morning.
The head purser returned our call the next morning and was as appalled as we were about the situation; but he was unclear about the Princess’ protocol for reporting this particular incident.
It was then that we learned the Sapphire Princess does not have security cameras in the hallways either. Should this baby have disappeared, there would have been no way to reconstruct what happened.
Incidents on cruise ships are often suppressed, which might lead people to a false sense of security; however, numerous crimes take place, ranging from sexual assaults (http://www.lipcon.com/areas_of_practice_assault_cases.php) to art auction swindles. (http://www.salvadordalifakes.com/articles/park-west-gallery-dali-swindle.php).
Make no mistake, the Washington-based organization International Cruise Victims
exists for a very good reason. Anytime a baby is found alone at night in a stroller on a cruise ship, something is drastically wrong with the system. Didn’t we learn enough from Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, which happened when her parents left her unsupervised in a ground floor bedroom in Portugal while they ate at a restaurant only 390 feet away.
At what point is leaving a sleeping baby in a stroller alone in a hall on a cruise ship considered abandonment and what responsibility does the cruise industry have in reporting this abominable act?
How many young children need to disappear before we put international security laws into affect? Mysterious circumstances aren’t so mysterious when it is acceptable practice to leave infants unattended in halls and children unattended in rooms.
And the irony? My friend and I went on this January 3, 2009, cruise on the Sapphire Princess to celebrate her finishing a PhD in child psychology.
by Elyse Friedman Caiello
