There were a total of 98 ships
broken in the second quarter of 2020. Of these, 60 ships were sold to the
beaches of South Asia, where, despite the majority of yards being closed due to
the Covid-19 pandemic, shipbreaking kept putting workers’ lives at risk.
Between April and June, at least 3 workers were severely injured in Bangladesh.
On April 24, Jalal (35) suffered
an accident at Habib Steel shipbreaking yard. He got injured while carrying
oxygen bottles from inside the ship.
According to local sources and
media, worker Md. Khalil (45) got injured on April 28 at an unauthorised
shipbreaking yard recently opened by lawmaker Didarul Alam. Khalil’s leg broke
after a hatch cover fell on him while dismantling the vessel BERGE EIGER, owned
by shipping company Berge Bulk. The worker was transferred to the Dhaka
Hospital due to the severity of the injury.
On June 22, an accident took
place during an illegal night shift at Jumuna Ship Breakers yard. Abdul Halim
(24) was hit by an iron piece in the stomach while cutting the vessel STELLAR
KNIGHT, owned by South Korean Polaris Shipping. It took a couple of hours for
the worker to be transported to the nearest hospital.
In the second quarter of 2020,
Greek ship owners sold the most ships to South Asian yards, closely followed by
Singaporean and South Korean owners. South Korean company Polaris Shipping sold
three vessels to Bangladesh for dirty and dangerous breaking. The ship owner
hit the headlines in June for the scuttling of the ore carrier STELLAR BANNER
off the coast of Brazil.
In April, we urged Bangladesh to
halt the import of a highly toxic offshore unit that had illegally departed
from Indonesia. The Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) tanker J. NAT left
Indonesian waters even though local activists warned Indonesian authorities
about the toxicity of the vessel. Following our actions and local media
reports, the government of Bangladesh directed all departments concerned not to
allow the ship to enter Bangladeshi territory. Maritime databases seem to
indicate that the vessel reversed course and changed name to RADIANT. However,
its current whereabouts are unknown.
Almost one third of the ships
sold to South Asia this quarter changed flag to the registries of Comoros,
Palau and St. Kitts and Nevis just weeks before hitting the beach. These flags
are not typically used during the operational life of ships and offer ‘last
voyage registration’ discounts. They are particularly popular with the
middlemen that purchase vessels cash from ship owners, and are grey- and
black-listed due to their poor implementation of international maritime law.
The high number of flag changes at end-of-life seriously compromises the effectiveness
of legislation based on flag state jurisdiction only, such as the European
Union (EU) Ship Recycling Regulation.
How Covid-19 is affecting
vulnerable shipbreaking workers
The pandemic is still affecting
workers globally, including those employed in the shipbreaking sector in South
Asia.
Bangladesh
According to local sources, all
shipbreaking yards resumed their activities on June 1. One third of them never
shut down despite the lockdown, exposing the workers to the risk of contracting
the virus and spreading it in the vulnerable local communities.
Having been deprived of accessing
government support, which is offered only to local workers, migrant workers
have been unable to return to their home villages due to the absence of public
transport services. Forced to continue to pay rent for the unsanitary and
improper accommodation near the shipbreaking yards, migrant workers, mainly
from the Northwest of Bangladesh, have been left to starve. This unprecedented
emergency situation led us to raise financial support to distribute, in
partnership with our member organisation OSHE, food and personal protective
equipment items to 130 of the most deprived shipbreaking workers’ families in
Sitakunda.
India
After a month since the start of
the national lockdown in India, the government announced the reopening of
several industries in Gujarat. At the end of June, around 30% of the workforce
was working at the shipbreaking yards in Alang. The fact that around 75% the
migrant workers returned to their home villages in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh
and Maharashtra has led the yard owners to look at the diamond sector’s
unemployed workers from Saurashtra.
Source: NGO Shipbreaking
Platform
