16-year-old
Khorshed Alam was crushed to death at 3:30 am on July 17 when a huge metal
plate fell on him.
This was Khorshed Alam’s first job. He left school to help support his
family. He lied about his age, claiming
he was 20 years old in order to be hired at the SRS shipbreaking yard in
Chittagong, Bangladesh. Supervisors
always put the kids on the night shift, knowing no one will ever inspect the
yards at night.
Sixteen-year-old Khorshed Alam worked a 12-hour shift,
from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. This is the
season of the monsoon rains in Bangladesh. There was constant driving rain and strong wind gusts. Often the workers went barefoot walking in
six inches or more of mud.
The senior “cutter man” was using his blow torch to cut
apart a huge metal plate which had been dragged from the dismantled ship. Khorshed was on the other side of metal
plate. It was 3:00 a.m. on July 17, when
a heavy gust of wind toppled the iron slab, which fell on Khorshed, crushing
him to death. It took half an hour for
his co-workers to finally lift the slab off his body They raced him to the Chittagong Medical
College Hospital, but he was declared dead on arrival.
Khorshed Alam was paid just 25 cents an hour, and $2.75 a
day. He and his co-workers toiled an
11-hour, all-night shift, doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world,
dismantling huge cargo ships with their bare hands. The senior “cutter men,” who use their blow
torches to cut apart the ships, earn just 40 cents an hour and $4.45 for the 11
hours of work.
Sixteen-year-old Khorshed Alam was so slight and young,
that all the shipbreakers did everything they could to protect this child, but
he was still killed.
Khorshed’s life was worth just $244, at least according
to the owner of the SRS Shipbreaking Yard, Mr. Abdullah Al Mamun. Mr. Mamun is the son of a local member of
Bangladesh’s parliament, Mr. ABM Abul Qasem, who is himself a wealthy shipyard
owner. Everything about this and other shipbreaking yards is blatantly
illegal. Under Bangladeshi law, no one
under 18 years of age is permitted to work in unsafe or hazardous working
conditions. Nor are children allowed to
work the night shift. But that is
exactly where the children are placed, on the night shift, when inspectors
never visit the shipbreaking yards.
Workers at the SRS yard have no ID cards, no work
contracts, no employment appointment letter.
It is as if these workers are hourly and daily contract laborers who
have absolutely no benefits or legal rights.
The only thing the workers get from the shipyard owner is
a pair of cheap gloves every 15 days.
The workers could use boots, but they never get them. The drinking water in the yard is heavily
polluted. There is no place in the
shipyard to eat. A doctor is available
for just four hours during the day shift.
There is no ambulance in the yard for workers who are badly injured and
need to be raced to a hospital.
When the Daily Star newspaper in Bangladesh called Mr.
Abdullah Al Mamum, the owner of the SRS Shipbreaking Yard, he responded that he
knew nothing about the accident. In fact
he was in the capital of Dhaka and not in Chittagong. He said “no one worked during such ungodly
hours at his yard.” If he were telling
the truth, the 16-yrad-old boy would not be dead.
There are approximately 170 workers at the SRS
Shipbreaking Yard which operates around the clock, with back to back day and
night shifts.
The ship Khorshed and the other workers were cutting
apart was the Kang Hua cargo ship (IMO 8128092) which was built in 1983 in
Ulsan, South Korea, by Hyundai. The
24,000-ton ship appears to have been owned by Dragon Wealth Shipping Ltd. in
Fujian, China.
Source: Global Labour Rights. 19 July 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment