Says Canon Ken Peters, director of justice and welfare at The Mission to Seafarers
Canon Ken Peters, director of justice and welfare at The Mission to Seafarers, has spoken out about the lack of ship visitors attending relevant training ahead of the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) coming into force this August.
Canon Peters was speaking at an International Committee on Seafarers’ Welfare (ICSW) conference on the implications and impact of the MLC.
Canon Peters was one of only two ship visitors within the International Christian Maritime Association (ICMA) who attended MLC training, despite ship visitors from that group being responsible for “well over 99% of waterfront welfare for seafarers around the world”.
Canon Peters said, “The entire convention is a welfare convention. Throughout the convention you will find a plethora of words which all testify to welfare.” He highlighted the fact that the words “medical” (169 times), “health” (123 times) and “welfare” (54 times) appear in the MLC repeatedly, and suggested that ship visitors would be the people best-placed to see if ships are MLC-compliant.
Without the necessary training, it will be more difficult for ship visitors to spot potential problems.
Canon Peters also criticised the MLC’s onboard complaints procedures, which suggest that seafarers with complaints should make the ship’s captain their first port of call.
“Who in their right mind would complain to the very person who is often giving them grief in the first place?” he asked. “Seafarers need to speak to people they trust -the port chaplains. They are there on the waterfront and must be ready to receive complaints and act on them.”
On a positive note, Canon Peters said that he felt the MLC meant that seafarers would be better protected: “We no longer have to go to ship-owners and say ‘please look after your seafarers’. We can now say ‘you will look after them’.
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Source: Mission to Seafarers
