The night had been warm, with overnight lows above 20°C, and the day ahead would feel like August in the middle of September. It was Monday, September 4, and the barque Garcia del Cid, an oceanographic vessel carrying 17 crew members, was quietly waking up off the coast of Valencia to continue the PETRI-MED research project conducted by the Institute of Marine Sciences, part of the Spanish CSIC, the Higher Council for Scientific Research.
Among the crew was Carmen Fernández, born in Cangas in 1980, a stewardess returning to service after two years ashore. She had reported a sexual assault on board this very ship by another crew member, whom family sources say was seen the day before in the Port of Barcelona. She had pleaded with CSIC to transfer her to a different unit so she would not have to return to the Garcia del Cid or cross paths with colleagues who, during her medical leave, remained aboard with the accused. Her request went unanswered; by the morning of September 10 she was no longer on the vessel. Her disappearance would not be investigated by a judge, as the Valencia Provincial Court recently closed the case, despite no formal judicial diligences having been conducted.
From the outset, the Guardia Civil led the inquiries, with the Gandia Court of Instruction No. 3 handling the proceedings. As reported by a regional newspaper, the family’s lawyer noted that testimonies were taken from only four of the 16 crew members, and only after their arrival to port. A single WhatsApp message sufficed to confirm that the person accused of the assault had left the ship one day before departure, on September 3, but no formal testimony was obtained from him.
Likewise, there was no requirement to review the footage from the vessel’s deck even though the oversight body never ruled out a possible accidental death. Early on, the Gandia court ordered provisional dismissal, stating that there were no sufficiently justified grounds to prosecute the alleged crime, while noting that police actions to clarify the facts could continue.
Nuevos pasos
“There are many pieces of evidence to gather. No judicial diligences were conducted. It remains unknown what happened when the two people crossed paths, whether there was workplace harassment, how she was treated aboard, what kind of atmosphere existed,” explained the family’s lawyer about the court’s provisional dismissal. The family plans to pursue further steps, likely aiming to hold CSIC accountable for alleged negligence. The institution, which operates under the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, has asserted that the Garcia del Cid’s collective agreement prevented Carmen from being transferred, a claim that contradicts both the agreement’s provisions and the vessel’s own governance protocol, which the press has traced to CSIC authority on board operations and to an anti-harassment protocol that CSIC says exists within its framework.
In repeated written questions to Parliament, and following regional press coverage, the government has limited its response to the judicial domain, while also stressing that CSIC conducted its own internal inquiry. It emphasized that the initially accused person was not part of the ship’s crew at the time of the incident, and noted that the woman was provided with a private cabin. As for mobility, the protocol includes a safeguarding clause for women affected by harassment or abuse, but it was argued that the Garcia del Cid’s own agreement does not include provisions for worker relocation.
“If you can’t find me, I’ll throw myself overboard. I love you all very much,” she wrote in the notebook left in her cabin.
#MeTooCSIC
The case of the Cangas crew member, a married mother of three, has sparked a wave of solidarity and condemnation online and has exposed a silenced reality within the country’s main public research institution. The CSIC president acknowledged the organization handles roughly five sexual harassment complaints per year; the institution processed twelve between 2019 and 2023, a figure a lawmaker from another party has raised to twenty in parliamentary sessions. One proposal urged the government to modify procedures to better protect complainants and to ensure investigation of harassment cases goes beyond judicial inquiries. A specific anti-harassment protocol announced by the minister over a year ago remains undisclosed to the public.
Six out of ten women at the “CSIC in the United States” have faced harassment at the Antarctic base. The National Science Foundation, the U.S. government agency overseeing the Antarctic program, published a 2022 survey showing that 59% of women involved reported harassment or assault. A major Associated Press investigation highlighted a pattern of employers minimizing harassment complaints. One case described a woman who reported being groped and then forced to work again alongside the offender, while another complainant was dismissed after raising concerns. The report noted instances where harassment charges were reduced to mere harassment in the record.