About
The most extreme cases of abandonment tend to receive some attention in the international press, but seafarer abandonment is fundamentally a systemic issue. By showing its geographical extent and steady recurrence over time, this map insists on the routine character of abandonments, to highlight their occurrence as a feature – not a bug – of the international shipping system.
Most commonly, vessels are abandoned as a result of a “calculated economic decision” by shipowners facing bankruptcy or insolvency, or following an arrest by port authorities demanded by either creditors or vessel inspectors. The legal definition of seafarer abandonment is stipulated under the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention (MLC). According to the MLC: “a seafarer shall be deemed to have been abandoned where, in violation of the requirements of this Convention or the terms of the seafarers’ employment agreement, the shipowner:
(a) fails to cover the cost of the seafarer’s repatriation; or
(b) has left the seafarer without the necessary maintenance and support; or
(c) has otherwise unilaterally severed their ties with the seafarer including failure to pay contractual wages for a period of at least two months.”
Lived reality
However, the MLC definition fails to capture the full reality of abandonment. Wages are often withheld for much longer than two months, and it is not uncommon that the abandonment period stretches into not just months, but years. When ships are abandoned, the remaining crew often quickly run out of fresh food and water supplies as well as bunker fuel, which can lead to blackout conditions with no electricity on board. This means no air conditioning for seafarers trapped aboard metal boxes, and no internet to communicate with families or vital NGOs. The ship quickly becomes an unsafe environment, while seafarers are forced to keep working on its day-to-day maintenance. Seafarers often equate situations of abandonment with mental torture aboard floating prisons.
Mobility Restrictions
The precarious material conditions abandoned seafarers find themselves in are further exacerbated by severe restrictions on their mobility. Seafarers operate in a work environment that can hold them triply hostage in cases of abandonment. Firstly, they often cannot step on land due to restrictive visa regimes or having had their passports confiscated by shipowners, or expired while at sea. Secondly, even if repatriation is technically possible, seafarers often choose to stay aboard the ship as this represents their only true bargaining chip to secure their owed wages, which, in cases of bankruptcy, are likely to come from the auctioning off of the vessel. Retaining a link to the vessel to stake a claim on its monetary value requires staying on board. Finally, it is often port authorities themselves that force crew to remain on board due to a principle known as Safe Manning, requiring a minimum number of experienced and qualified crew to safely maintain a ship. If seafarers try to leave the vessel they’ve been abandoned on, they may find themselves charged with breaking the law and forced back on the vessel to avoid arrest.
Impact
If the seafarers are the main income earners for their families, then these families often borrow money at home to live on while a seafarer is stranded – thus the seafarers’ families end up inadvertently serving the prior, unpaid debt of the ship owners, the outstanding money owed to creditors and crew.
Ripple Effects
Abandonment does not just affect one group of people in one place at one time: each time a ship owner walks away from a crew, they leave a far-reaching trail of problems in their wake. It can take months or years for seafarers to recover some of their outstanding wages and make their way home, and the costs of their travel are not always covered: it is common for seafarers to pay for their own travel home (despite already losing months of wages), then face a protracted legal battle to get those costs reimbursed.
If the seafarers are the main income earners for their families, then these families often borrow money at home to live on while a seafarer is stranded – thus the seafarers’ families end up inadvertently serving the prior, unpaid debt of the ship owners, the outstanding money owed to creditors and crew.
To all of this we have to also account for that which can’t be accounted for financially: the psychic toll of months and years away from home, stuck on a rusting ship, with barely enough food and only enough electricity for a couple of hours of electricity a day. A christian charity that supports abandoned seafarers recently noted how the crew of MV Jinan were in dire need of counseling following their ordeal.
Vacuum of Responsibility
This issue is exacerbated - and often needlessly drawn out - by confusion over where responsibility for any particular case sits. There are at least four state actors involved in any abandonment - the flag state where the ship is flagged to, the port state where the ship is abandoned, the state of origin of the seafarers themselves, and the state in which the company operating the ship is registered. Often, each of these expects the others to take action, so no action gets taken and it is left to other actors - civil society, unions such as the ITF, UN bodies, or others to take on solving a particular case.
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