ISWAN launched its first annual review for 2018-2019, based on statistics from their international helpline for seafarers and their families, SeafarerHelp, presenting ISWAN’s objectives in helping seafarers while also providing information on the seafarers that contacted in the specific timeframe, their gender, their nationality and the issues affecting them.
2018-2019 Overview – The SeafarerHelp team:
Provided a 24-hour assistance, 365 days per year, not only to seafarers but also to their families, in their own language.
- 3,260 new cases
- 8,111 seafarers
- received 4,652 successive contacts
- 91 different nationalities
- 126 different countries
- 6% female seafarers.
Seafarer nationalities
Specifically, ISWAN had to deal with 126 different countries around the world and dealt with seafarers of 91 different nationalities compared to 86 in 2017/2018.
Gender
As stated above, 6% were recorded to be female seafarers, while the remaining 94% were male. Commonly, female seafarers account for about 3-4% cases where gender is recorded; Thus, in the specific timeframe, the female seafarers that contacted with ISWAN doubled from the 3% during 2017-2018.
Seafarers concerns and issues
The most common issues that affected seafarers were about:
- unpaid wages reduced to 9.07% of cases from 12.40% of cases in the previous year.
- repatriation problems reduced to 4.49% of cases from 6.80% of cases in the previous year. One possible factor in the reduction in these cases is the impact of the implementation of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 and seafarers’ awareness of it. More shipping companies now appreciate that they need to meet the required standards and crew are now more aware of what they should expect and are increasingly likely to raise concerns if these standards are not met.
- financial and debt problems have increased to 3.65% from 2.10% in the previous year.
- information given to crew about seafarer centres increased by 8.50% to 11.51%
Flag states
Concluding, in further supporting the seafarers ISWAN launched the ShipMoney Cares to provide one-time financial grants to seafarers in need, such as medical or educational aid.
To explore more on ISWAN’s 2018/2019 review click herebelow
