4 ex-KBR workers sue over Iraq rape and sex harassment
Four women who worked for Houston-based Halliburton Co.'s former subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root have filed federal lawsuits against the companies, claiming they endured sexual harassment and, in two cases rape, while working in Iraq.
Attorneys say their clients encountered a sexually-charged atmosphere where women were repeatedly demeaned and solicited for sex despite reporting harassment to
More..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
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