Brussels, 12 July 2017 -
There were a total of 210 ships broken in the second quarter of 2017. 158 of
these ships ended up on South Asian beaches for dirty and dangerous breaking
[1]. The Platform was able to document five accidents at the shipbreaking yards
in Chittagong, Bangladesh, between April and June, which led to the death of
four workers and the injury of two.
Ishaq worked as a winch operator and died struck by a
cable at the BBC Steel Shipbreaking/KR yard. This is the second fatal accident
this year at BBC Steel. Zishan died in an accident at the Ratanpur Steel
Re-Rolling mills where iron plates from the ships are transformed for the
construction industry. In Jamuna Shipbreaking yard, the Platform reported in
May about the death of Shahinoor who fell from the Hanjin Rome, the first ship
arrested after the bankruptcy of the Korean container giant Hanjin Shipping.
This ship was sold on auction by the Singaporean courts following the
bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping and should be a harrowing wake-up call to courts
and bankruptcy administrators that there are human consequences of selling
ships for the highest return price to the beaches. During a nightshift on 21
May, Shochindro Das died when he was hit by an iron pipe. He was working as a
cutter helper in the Khawja yard, which shares owner with Kabir Steel. Working
during night shifts without protective equipment are particularly graving
circumstances that sadly witness of the extremely harsh conditions workers face
at the shipbreaking yards in Chittagong. Local sources are claiming that
Shochindro Das was only 15 years old, whilst the officially reported age was
26. The Platform will investigate these serious allegations. Child labour at
the Bangladesh shipbreaking yards is illegal under Bangladesh law and also
under the ILO’s Convention on Worst Forms of Child Labour.
The worst dumping country this quarter was Germany with
16 beached ships, a consequence of the multiple bankruptcies due to the toxic
financing that has been characteristic of the German shipping industry. In
June, German public television channel ARD documented the appalling conditions
under which German ships are broken in Bangladesh. The other leading dumping
nations were Singapore with 12 ships, Greece with 9, and South Korea with 8.
Though 45 out of the 158 beached vessels this quarter were European-controlled,
only four of these had a European flag.
Legislation at the international and European level to
regulate the disposal of ships is based on flag state jurisdiction. The flags
of the worst dumping countries were however rarely or not used at end-of-life.
Flags of convenience, in particular the grey- and black-listed ones under the
Paris MOU, are used by cash buyers and ship owners to send ships to the worst
breaking locations. Nearly a third (49) of all the ships sent to South Asia
this quarter changed flag to typical end-of-life registries only weeks before
hitting the beaches: St Kitts & Nevis, Comoros, Palau, Djibouti, Niue and
Togo. These flags are not typically used during the operational life of ships
and offer ‘last voyage registration’ discounts. They are grey and black-listed
due to their poor implementation of international maritime law.
There were five cases where the ships in question were
sent to South Asia in breach of the EU Waste Shipment Regulation [2]. In
Bangladesh, the Platform was successful in taking legal action to halt the
breaking of the FPSO North Sea Producer which was illegally exported from the
UK in 2016. The Platform also alerted this quarter the Brazilian government of
several vessels exported to the beaching yards from Brazil in clear breach of
UNEP’s Basel Convention.
The worst company was the Singaporean Continental
Shipping Line that had six Liberian-flagged vessels that all changed flag to St
Kitts & Nevis or Comoros and were beached in South Asia. Quantum Pacific is
a close runner-up on second place for worst dumping practices, with four ships
sold to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Quantum, owned by Idan Ofer, son of the late
shipping mogul Sammy Ofer, has been under the Platform’s radar before as the
worst dumper of 2015. The worst dumper of 2016 was UK-based Zodiac Maritime,
run by Idan’s brother, Eyal Ofer.
The figures of this quarter not only show how legislation
based on flag state jurisdiction will fail in changing the deplorable
shipbreaking practices of the shipping industry, they also show that companies such
as Quantum and Zodiac have no shame in continuing to exploit vulnerable workers
in South Asia for the sake of extra profits.
NOTES
[1] During the second quarter 2017, the following number
of vessels were broken in other locations: 26 in Turkey, 22 in China, and 4 in
the rest of the world.
[2] German Gebab Konzeptions- und Treuhandgesellschaft
mbH & Company KG owned GURU; Chilean Naviera Ultranav Limitada owned HAPPY
FELLOW; US based Diamond Offshore Drilling Incorporated owned SPUR; Romanian S.C.
Grup Servicii Petroliere S.A. owned FALCON; and Italian Argo S.r.l. owned
ALICA.
CONTACT
Ingvild JENSSEN
Director and Founder
NGO Shipbreaking Platform
ingvild@shipbreakingplatform.org
Tel.: +32 (0)26094419
Source: NGO Shipbreaking Platform
No comments:
Post a Comment