KENDALL L. CARVER, PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Every 2 weeks somebody goes missing on a cruise ship, like my daughter. It's not something that never happens, but the last thing the industry wants is for this information to be public. The steward had reported Merrian missing daily from the time she got on that ship. They didn't report it. They knew it from the very beginning. And to get to that steward in a deposition cost us $75,000. At that point, we knew we had to do it on our own.
You've got to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to be persistent. We formed a little group called International Cruise Victims that nobody ever heard of, and what we've introduced has come from what the victims have suffered—the fact that victims have been raped, the fact that they've died because of poor medical care. We've taken victims who have never walked the halls of Congress, we came up with a simple 10-point program. We passed the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act. International standards are being set up so that if somebody goes overboard, they can take immediate action. So we're making real progress, that crimes are being reported directly to the legal authorities that can do something with it.
It's been a long journey. Now we're still working to make sure everything's enforced. When we started off at the beginning, we were just four families. That group has grown with hundreds of members in 35 countries in the world. As people have come together, it gives them a hope that they didn't have. And let me tell you, there's no more powerful group than a group of victims that becomes organized and has a purpose.
