Platform News – Platform welcomes three Board Members and a new member organization at 2013 AGM

Brussels, 11 November 2013 – The NGO Shipbreaking Platform, a global coalition of organisations working to bring an end to dangerous and polluting shipbreaking practices, is pleased to welcome three new Members to its Board,  as well as a new member organisation from Pakistan. Dr Irfan Khan, professor and chair of the environmental sciences department at the Islamic University in Islamabad, Robert Evans, former Member of the European Parliament, and Ramapati Kumar from Greenpeace India, have been appointed to the Platform Board during the Platform’s annual general meeting which took place in Islamabad, Pakistan from 28 to 30 October.

A new member organisation from Pakistan has also joined the Platform: the Center for the Rule of Law – Islamabad (CRoLI), represented by its founder and former Supreme Court Judge, Majid Bashir, making it  the Platform’s 18th member organisation, and the second organisation based in Pakistan.

“We are pleased to welcome such an extraordinary group of people into our coalition”, says Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of the Brussels-based secretariat of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. “We have always strived to work with the most dedicated activists and advocates of clean and safe ship recycling worldwide, and we are pleased to see such a diverse expertise join the Platform.”

Ramapati Kumar will represent Greenpeace at the Platform’s Board and in this role will formally replace Marietta Harjono, former toxics campaigner at Greenpeace International in the Netherlands. Marietta joined the Platform at its inception in 2005 and has provided her expertise on shipbreaking throughout the years.

“We wish to thank Marietta for her expertise and dedication to the shipbreaking issue. We are sad to see her go but we wish her the best in her future endeavors”, says Patrizia Heidegger.

During its 2013 AGM, the Platform launched a research report about the shipbreaking yards of Gadani, Pakistan, that focuses on the shipbreaking workers’ plight. The report has been received with interest by the Pakistani government, the Pakistani shipbreakers’ association, the trade unions and various research institutes and universities looking into the shipbreaking issue.

The Platform also visited the shipbreaking yards of Gadani, a coastal village located west of Karachi, and documented the situation there.

(from left to right, top to bottom: Moazzam Bhatti from SDPI; Patrizia Heidegger from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform; Majid Bashir from the Center for the Rule of Law – Islamabad; Abu Eusuf Mollah from BILS; Ingvild Jenssen from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform; Mehwish Javed from SDPI; Syeda Rizwana Hasan from BELA; Taslima from BELA; Iqbal Kabir from BELA;  Robert Evans from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform; Dr Irfan Khan from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform; Kanwar Javed from SDPI; Azam Khan from the newspaper Express Tribune; Junaid Zahid from SDPI; Delphine Reuter from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform; and Helen Périvier from the NGO Shipbreaking Platform)

Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform.