Human Rights at Sea (HRAS) has called upon the IMO to increase its level of transparency and factual detail in the public reporting of cases reflecting human and labour rights abuse of seafarers.
The change being requested is needed to address the perception that protectionist blue-washing is occurring in relation to those entities involved in sub-standard, manipulative, and/or unlawful activities affecting crew and their families.
Following the recent In Focus IMO article ‘Supporting seafarers on the frontline of COVID-19‘, HRAS contacted the IMO to better understand the UN Agency’s position for not detailing those entities involved in the numerous case studies highlighted concerning issues of seafarer abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
HRAS highlighted to the IMO its continuous drive for greater public transparency for exposing accurate levels and sources of abuse within the shipping industry from an objective and fact-based approach.
This includes the fair and reasonable spotlighting of flag, port and coastal state authorities, owners, operators, managers, and recruiting agencies acting against the interests and fundamental rights of the seafarer.
On the other side, IMO representative, Natasha Brown, stated: “We have decided not to engage in “name and shame. Instead, we have found that the more successful approach is to engage with the countries at the diplomatic level, forge solutions and then report these as examples for others to follow.This is not about hiding anything; we’re trying to use methods that provide the best chance for solutions.”
Overall, HRAS urges the IMO and its Members to step up and shed its current veil of neutral fact reporting which HRAS asserts encourages abusive practices towards seafarers due to an institutional policy and fear of calling entities and individuals to public account thereby, de facto, reinforcing impunity and lack of effective remedy.
