Crew abandonments continue to be a major issue in shipping with the number of vessels listed on the international abandonment database rising from 34 in 2018, to 40 in 2019, to a record high of 85 in 2020, ITF reported.
In 2020, the ITF submitted a record number of abandonment cases to the International Labour Organization. The ITF lodged 60 of the 85 the cases which appeared in the ILO abandonment database last year, representing hundreds of seafarers who were owed wages, repatriation flights, or both.
High-profile cases include that of Mohammad Aisha, a Syrian seafarer who was made legal guardian of the Bharani-flagged MV Aman. Aisha was forced to live on the abandoned vessel for four years while Egyptian authorities tried to sell the ship to pay the owners’ debts. After ITF involvement in December, it took five months to get Aisha home.
However, the number of cases officially reported and recorded by the IMO “is just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to instances of abandonment and owed wages, noted ITF Inspectorate Coordinator Steve Trowsdale.
Abandonment is on the rise, and sadly a reason for that rise has been flag States not standing up to their responsibilities to seafarers. Flag States are supposed to ensure that ships that fly their flags are paying seafarers on time, repatriating them at the end of contracts, and providing the necessities of life,
…he said.
Meanwhile, new figures released by the ITF show that $44,613,880 USD of seafarers’ owed wages were recovered by the ITF’s network of inspectors across the world last year. ‘Owed wages’ are usually pay, bonuses or entitlements that are unpaid by a shipowner or their agent for the work already done by a seafarer.
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Trowsdale said the owed wages figure was substantial considering how difficult it has been for inspectors to board ships due to Covid-19 restrictions imposed by governments, health and port authorities. Despite restrictions, inspectors supported seafarers with 7,476 cases in 2020, with more than 6,000 vessels boarded, recovering almost the same amount of owed wages for seafarers as they did last year.
The pandemic has proved genuinely difficult for some shipowners who were already running marginally viable operations – some have struggled to pay for more expensive repatriation flights than what they’re used to get seafarers home, and the new cost of quarantine. But financial challenges faced by companies are no reason to suspend the payment wages or not uphold seafarers’ human rights,
…said Trowsdale.
