FOR millennia, the symbol of the ship
epitomised hope and the promise of new horizons. With the discoveries of new
lands and the onset of trade, the image of the ship was besmirched with the
sufferings of human cargo — the slaves — transported in and out of continents.
Then, more recently, emerged the phenomenon of boats full of refugees and
immigrants capsizing on Western shores. What remains hidden, or not so visible,
in our collective consciousness is the story of ships being broken down across
South Asia’s shores, bringing in their wake death and despair to those who
dismantle, bit by bit, the decaying, hazardous, mammoth machines.
Hence, it was barely a surprise when many of
this nation’s newspapers deemed unfit for front-page publication news of the dead,
the trapped and the injured workers of the recent disaster at the Gadani
ship-breaking yard.
An image or two on the TV news channels soon
vanished, replaced by tickers few could comprehend. Even Labour Watch Pakistan,
the news portal on labour rights, placed it third on a list of four stories in
its bulletin. The dynamics of this global industry and its impact on workers
remain little discussed, except for some efforts among civil society and
alternate media groups to highlight the plight of the workers involved.
A ship lasts about 25 years and then it must
disintegrate. A dying ship contains large amounts of carcinogens and toxic
materials — oil sludge, asbestos, paints laden with heavy metals — besides
steel, iron, wood and other recyclable items.
Up until the late 1960s, ships were
dismantled in the countries of their origin. As the pressure for environmental
regulations and occupational health and safety standards increased in the wake
of international laws and treaties, the rich countries played smart —
circumventing laws, changing flags — and started selling their old ships to
middlemen who would then sell it to scrap metal profiteers in South Asia.
Gradually, in the 1980s, the ship-breaking industry came to be moored on the
beaches of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.
No doubt the recyclable material —
particularly steel — comes in handy and is cheap for Pakistan’s economy. Also,
the task of dismantling inducts a significant chunk of poor, unskilled or
semi-skilled, marginalised, low-paid labour that is unable to find any other
means of livelihood. So, the government turns a blind eye to the human, social
and environmental costs that this industry entails.
The workers toil without protective gear —
helmets, goggles, boots, gloves — at dangerous heights, and live in makeshift
huts at Gadani without electricity, safe drinking water or medical facilities.
There is no inspection and monitoring of the hoisting and hauling equipment,
the dangerous work processes or the work conditions.
Apparently, the only requirement before a
ship is beached and broken is for a no-objection certificate to be issued by
the Balochistan government’s Environmental Protection Agency after the
submission of an impact assessment. Although Pakistan is a signatory to the
Basel Convention, no compliance legislation is in place. A labour inspection
system hardly exists, and violations of the Factories Act, 1934 and relevant
environmental laws are rampant.
The global players are reluctant to ratify
the International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling
of Ships, adopted by the International Maritime Organisation in Hong Kong in
2009. The convention cannot be enforced until it is ratified by at least 15
ship-owning and ship-scrapping nations.
Nonetheless, several countries are preparing
to follow the IMO-developed guidelines for early implementation once the
convention is finally enforced.
Based on the Hong Kong convention, in 2013
the European Union adopted its own Ship Recycling Regulation to regulate the
recycling of EU-flagged ships scrapped in South Asia and announced the
establishment of a European list of ship recycling facilities that meet the
regulation’s requirements by the end of 2016. It is a pity that, given its
current state, Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry will not meet EU requirements
in the foreseeable future, which may jeopardise its GSP-Plus status.
News of the arrest of the ship-breaking
company’s owner and of the chairperson of the Ship Breakers’ Association —
flickering for a while on a certain TV channel and mentioned in passing in a
news report — augurs well, despite the inadequate coverage of this important
accountability measure.
Now is an opportune time for civil society
groups to engage in judicial activism and initiate public interest litigation.
The case law against prevalent ship-breaking practices has been of help in
Bangladesh and India. In 2009, Bangladesh’s supreme court decision to shut down
domestic ship-breaking yards that do not possess environmental clearance has
helped further the cause of green methods of ship recycling. Also, the
government must pay heed to recommendations put forth by the SDPI in its 2013
report for turning this bleak trade into a green industry.
The writer is a researcher in the development
sector.
Source: Dawn.
06 November 2016
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