Sunday 26 October
2014, 14:45 - 15:15 on German state TV
channel ZDF
Brussels, 23 October 2014 – A new documentary titled
"Giftiger Tankerschrott für Bangladesch - Toxic ships for Bangladesh"
will be shown this Sunday on ZDF. It was filmed by a team of the national
German TV channel last month in Chittagong, one of the world's largest
shipbreaking sites. The documentary follows Patrizia Heidegger, Executive
Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, and Muhammed Ali Shahin, the
Platform's Bangladesh project coordinator, as they meet with the workers, some
of them children, and their families.
The team interviews
workers who were injured while dismantling end-of-life ships. Some of them are
permanently disabled as a result, and have no other choice but to fight their
former employers to get compensation for their injuries and access to proper medical
care. The team visits the poorly run hospitals and talks with doctors about the
miserable conditions in which they have to provide treatment.
But the documentary goes
further: not only does it show the precarious working and living conditions of
the shipbreaking workers and their families, it also reveals how German
shipping companies are complicit by knowingly selling their old ships to yards
that are no more than muddy beaches and where accidents, sometimes fatal, are
frequent. Most German ship owners sell their old vessels for the best price -
making a handsome profit at the expense of workers' lives and the environment.
The documentary shows the clear link between the irresponsible dumping of
German-owned ships in Bangladesh and the deplorable situation on the ground in
Chittagong. The journalists also meet a ship owner that has chosen to invest in
cleaner and safer ship recycling methods, where workers are trained and aware
of the hazardous waste these ships can contain. The documentary thus shows that
alternatives to substandard beaching practices are possible.
Source: NGO Shipbreaking
Platform.
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