The Divine Comedy of Seafarer Abandonment
Abandon hope all ye who enter here, that was the message of Dante’s medieval classic poem, the Divine Comedy. It could well have been written about seafaring for far too many people at sea, even today. Seafarer abandonment is on the rise and we should all be very angry indeed!
The issue of seafarer abandonment is a stain on the reputation of shipping, it drags all of us down with it. How can we live, work and talk of positives when so many crews are simply left to rot?
According to Rightship, as of 1 June 2022, the total number of seafarers that are or have been abandoned worldwide over the last 20 years, stood at 8,820 people, on 628 vessels.
The greatest number of people abandoned by nationality are from India, with 1,341 seafarers cut adrift, running down through 104 countries, to Armenia, Ecuador, Germany, Malaysia, the Maldives, Sa Tome and Principe, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro and Taiwan, all with one apiece.
The type of vessels abandoned varies widely — with general cargo ships (33.7%), bulk carriers (9.3%) and chemical products / tankers (7.3%) featuring most highly in a list of 59 vessel descriptions, according to the Rightship data. Incredibly, some of these vessels are abandoned twice.
The most common age for an abandoned vessel is between 26 and 30 years, with 16.9% of the 628 vessels falling into this category, though, shockingly, some 32 vessels were abandoned in their first five years of sailing. Which seems mad, but there you go — no crew is safe from the dereliction of duty that some owners feel is their right.
NO QUICK FIX
It is also not a quick problem to fix — according to Rightship’s statistics, since 2004, there are 30 vessels where abandonments have been in dispute for more than a decade, with more than 400 seafarers still waiting for their cases to be settled. On average, the crew remained onboard for seven months before being repatriated, with the longest being a 39-month-long wait to go home.
Most abandonments seem to take between five and ten years to resolve — an incredible length of time for those potentially left trapped and out of pocket, and unnoticed by most of the world.
If you are new to the world of ships and seafarers, and shadowy owners, let me explain. When a ship is abandoned, seafarers do not receive the pay they are owed. If they leave the vessel, they are potentially saying goodbye to years of unpaid wages, millions of pounds that go to support their loved ones — and in some cases, their entire community, even paying off the debt incurred for getting the job in the first place.
WHY ARE SEAFARERS ABANDONED?
The reasons for abandoned ships — and the abandonment of seafarers on board — are many and varied. There is no single driver of this despicable act. Some owners run out of money for a voyage, some go bankrupt. Some ships reach the end of their useful life, and facing high repair costs the owner decides to cut and run.
Officially, abandonment is when a shipowner fails to cover the cost of a seafarer’s repatriation, has left seafarers without necessary maintenance and support, or when they have otherwise unilaterally severed their ties with the crew, including failing to pay contractual wages for at least two months.
What about the law? Surely an employer has to care for their crew? Well…yes and no. Under the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC), shipowners need to have insurance to assist seafarers on board vessels if they are abandoned. All ships whose flag States have ratified the MLC must have their insurance certificate visible for the crew to see and understand. The document should provide the name of the insurer or financial provider, and their contact details.
Hooray for the rules. Alas, while 95% of the world’s tonnage is covered, there are still 60% of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Member States that haven’t seen fit to put pen to paper. So there are those nations for whom, the regulations are seen not to apply.
This is a major problem and issue. With so many of these flag States working with the most likely culprits, it is as if they are an incubator or accelerator for abandonment. If you are about to join a 26–30-year-old general cargo ship flying the flag of one of these non-MLC signatory States you should be very, very wary indeed.
WHAT CAN AND SHOULD WE DO?
So what do we do about it? Do we just accept that is how it is and always will be? Do we shrug? Wag and finger and accept that some shipowners are dreadful people? Well, that is what has been going on for centuries. Seafarers have always borne the heaviest of burdens for bad shipowners.
Back to the Divine Comedy, for that is what we are seeing, some kind of sick joke, as poor old seafarers are dragged through a journey via Hell, Purgatory and hopefully Paradise, when they are finally allowed to go home and get what is rightly owed to them.
Dante even referred to life as a voyage, and so the parallels are all too apparent. While the medieval classic poem was about a soul’s journey to salvation, there are definite elements that capture the true pain, suffering, degradation and terrible truth of what seafarers can face.
Those shipowners who allow themselves to enter the 9 circles of hell, and who believe that it is ok to abandon their seafarers into the inferno of abandoned damnation. Those who would abandon their crews are guilty of one of the greatest sins, as the vessel ages, as it needs expensive repairs, or is no longer attractive to charterers, then this is a form of limbo. They hover in a moral void, deciding what to do next.
When the decision to cut ties comes, then it is greed and gluttony, a complete disregard for people, just wanting to limit their costs and exposure to loss. For the love of money, they throw the people who rely on them away like so much trash.
There is treachery at the heart of this issue. An owner who abandons their crew turns their back on the people who have worked for them, who have sacrificed and toiled for them, well that is a traitor of epic proportions.
So this is a divine comedy, which is neither divine nor funny — it is a tragedy. One that everyone in shipping should rail against. We know what is happening, we know the scale, the pain and loss it causes. We have to call for change. We cannot expect society to push for it, because this is an invisible problem. Only we know what is happening, and so only we can push for solutions.
MAKE THE UN RECOGNISE SEAFARERS
What would I do? Well, I believe that we are all talking about digitalisation and the power of maritime informatics. We are proud of the great and good, the fantastic things we do in shipping — but we are too easily distracted and shy away from the bad.
We need the tools to help seafarers. We need to have a global database of all mariners. Former and serving. Seafarers’ identity documents (discharge books) should be issued by the United Nations IMO and not by an individual State.
As such, the people holding the suddenly have a link and right to care from the highest authorities. If a State then allows crews on a vessel flying its flag to suffer, they then should suffer too — they should be placed on a sanctions list and red warnings issued to highlight the problems.
With this system, we would have the power from the top down. We would have a clear, transparent insight into what is happening — and a sanctioned flag State would be then compelled to act against an owner. Suddenly the net would close — and we could make progress.
Until then, these problems will remain. There will be thousands more seafarers who walk up a gangway and down into hell. We have to find the answers, we have to find the tools to fix this. A problem that deserves to be focused on, because the owners that would abandon their people will also renege on commitments to the climate. They won’t decarbonise, or clean up their mess. It is clear in the way they treat people — so if we want a cleaner planet, we need to clean our conscience first. Let us find the ways and means to end this curse on our industry, let’s end abandonment.
