Attorneys say their clients encountered a sexually-charged atmosphere where
women were repeatedly demeaned and solicited for sex despite reporting
harassment to supervisors.
The lawyers for women in the alleged rape cases say they are turning to the
civil courts in part because they haven't been able to determine whether
federal authorities are pursuing criminal prosecutions.
KBR would not comment specifically on the cases, but a spokeswoman said sexual
harassment is barred. Before being deployed to Iraq, all KBR employees are
briefed on the company's code of business conduct, which "strictly prohibits
sexual harassment by KBR employees," said KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne.
Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said her company "is improperly named" in
the lawsuits. Halliburton and KBR split earlier this year.
Experts say they fear that untold numbers of crimes by civilian contractors
have not been prosecuted because of ambiguities over which judicial system to
apply to U.S. civilians working in a foreign war zone.
"You are using more and more contractors and yet you've created a legal
netherworld where there's, at the least, a lack of accountability," said Peter
W. Singer, a fellow with the Brookings Institution and author of the book
Corporate Warriors. "At the same time you're paying contractors more and than
you pay soldiers yet you're holding soldiers to higher standards."
United States Department of Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra said U.S. attorneys
recently told Congress that only three criminal cases have been prosecuted. He
did not say why U.S. attorneys have not prosecuted more cases. Singer said it
is largely due to jurisdictional problems.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits say the culture among the largely male dominated
contractor population was hostile to women when they worked there in 2004 and
2005. In court papers filed in May, a married Conroe woman said that she needed
surgery to repair torn muscles and ruptured breast implants after she was
drugged and brutally raped by a drunken co-worker and other men, firefighters,
in a coed dorm at Camp Hope in Baghdad in July 2005.
A rape kit taken shortly after she awoke included DNA from a man who was
sleeping in her bed as well as other unknown "John Doe" suspects, according to
the lawsuit filed by Houston attorney Todd Kelly.
"This attack never would have occurred but for the 'boys will be boys' attitude
that permeated the environment that defendants first created, then failed to
warn (the woman) about - an environment that was excused, if not encouraged,
and of which the defendants had ample prior notice," states the suit, filed on
May 30 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Beaumont.
Kelly is representing the Conroe woman , then 20, as well as a married North
Carolina woman who filed a suit in May alleging that she was nearly raped in a
separate 2005 incident.
In another lawsuit filed in January in the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Florida, a woman alleges that she was raped by a drunken male KBR
employee at an apartment in Ramadi, Iraq, in December 2005. On Tuesday, an
Oklahoma woman filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District
of Oklahoma, claiming she was fired in October 2005 for reporting sexual
harassment.
The Chronicle is not naming the women because they say they are victims of sex
crimes. Each woman is seeking unspecified damages.
Their lawyers say the problems were exacerbated because KBR permitted the
consumption of alcohol in barracks. And even when it banned alcohol later in
2005, the company did little to stop its employees from drinking in living
quarters, said said John Spiegel, a Miami attorney representing a Florida
woman.
That suit states that the woman was raped by a drunk coworker who entered her
room with a stolen key.
But KBR's Browne said the company does not permit alcohol in its living
quarters and it "does fully investigate improper conduct including any
allegations of sexual harassment."
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, however, found that KBR's
investigation into the Conroe woman's allegation was "inadequate and did not
effect an adequate remedy," according to a May 8 letter from the EEOC's Houston
District Director R.J. Ruff Jr.
KBR told EEOC officials that the male accused in the rape claimed that the
woman "consented to have sex with him," according to the EEOC letter.
Lawyers for the alleged rape victims say KBR, Halliburton and federal
authorities have refused to say whether their alleged attackers will face
criminal charges or whether they are still in Iraq.
All of the women have stopped working for the company.''Our client is left with
the continuing fear her attacker is walking the streets free and may attack her
again,'' said Spiegel, the attorney representing the Florida woman.
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
