International media outlets publish ‘With
bare hands’, the first multimedia and data-driven reporting project that
documents the negative impacts on the environment and the human costs of
shipbreaking in South Asia. Spanish daily newspaper El Pais and international
news channel Al Jazeera are the first to make this reporting available.
Isacco Chiaf, graphic designer, and Tomaso
Clavarino, journalist and photographer, are behind this outstanding project,
which was funded by the European Journalism Centre. The two Italians travelled
to Bangladesh and India, where dirty and dangerous scrapping is conducted on
the tidal beaches of Chittagong and Alang. With texts, infographics, videos,
photo-essays, interviews and maps, they have been able to show how shipbreaking
activities are contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem and negatively
affecting the lives of thousands of people.
“What impressed me the most during the days
spent in Bangladesh and India, besides the extremely inhuman working conditions
and evident pollution, was the difficulty to access this industry. Armed guards
were securing the entry to the yards and our every move was tracked. The local
police is clearly enmeshed with the ship breakers that don’t want their
business practices revealed. That journalists and photographers are not welcome
was clearly communicated. We still managed to penetrate this extremely closed
industry – and the devastating stories we documented cannot be ignored,” says
Tomaso Clavarino.
The multimedia platform highlights the issues
of child labour, environmental pollution and lack of healthy and safe working
and living conditions. Maps and graphs, based on the NGO Shipbreaking
Platform’s data, focus on the practices of the shipping industry such as the
use of flags of convenience and cases of illegal trafficking. Interviews with
Patrizia Heidegger, the Platform’s executive director, and Muhammed Ali
(Shahin), the Platform’s coordinator in Bangladesh, are also featured.
Source:
port news. 26 January 2017
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