PICKING up from The Manila Times Maritime Section’s recently published article, “BIMCO targets seafarer abandonment and criminalization,” David Hammond, the founder of London-based Human Rights at Sea International (HRASI), forwards his views on seafarer abandonment and unjust criminalization.
Hammond believes that conferences rife with corporate solidarity must move beyond talks and must be translated into action with tangible results.
As someone who has been out on the grounds doing actual work in helping the families of abandoned and unjustly criminalized seafarers, Hammond shares his thoughts on the actionable steps that governments and the maritime sector must do to resolve these issues.
For years, maritime leaders and administrations have been talking of "supporting" criminalized seafarers and laying out plans and intentions to back this support. But amid all the talk is the gap where intention and action lies.
“Before civil society became deeply involved with the human rights at sea movement and the necessary fundamental international protections for those living, working and transiting at sea as workers, passengers, individuals rescued at sea in distress, the human and labor rights abuse issues were clearly understood generation-on-generation but often poorly articulated to have the necessary impact for real change,” Hammond stated in an op-ed piece he sent exclusively to The Manila Times.
“Equity in resources, access to a basic living wage, fair payment for fair work, access to education and financial security upholding fundamental human rights remains the nirvana. It is one worth fighting for against the rapidly expanding global wealth gaps.
“In the maritime ecosystem, the landing of messaging to better protect workers has invariably fallen on deaf ears; that was until major incidents occurred and the world’s attention was directed by concerted communications efforts to highlight the fate and wider consequences of the likes of workers at sea.
“The Covid-19 pandemic saw the first real acceptance at UN Secretary General level that seafarers and maritime workers are key workers. Remarkable though that it took a global health tragedy to make this undeniable point,” he explained.
“Positively, this had the impact of unusually aligning necessary global business and supply chains with some small degree of understanding of humanitarian principles underpinned by established customary human and labor rights law.
“The 2021 Evergreen Suez Canal incident which slowed global trade, the war in Ukraine and restrictions for global grain flow, the Hormuz crisis and US/Israeli led was against Iran have all contributed to a degree of public awareness of the fragility of global supply chains,” he furthered.
Hammond maintained that “this public awareness of the crucial role of maritime workers is temporary, transient, and cyclical.”
According to the HRASI founder, this is set against a general malaise of commercial and as applicable, state impunity to enforce those laws underpinning human rights protections hard won and fought for by our forebears.
“The true but unpopular narrative is summed up by there being little change over the decades in a multitrillion-dollar maritime supply chain were billionaires become richer at the expense of the ordinary person.
“This is despite wasted millions spent on new social initiatives, ongoing core welfare support dominated by volunteers, and endless international industry conferences.
“The constant repetition of discussing abuses at sea without enforcement, the lack of prosecutions, and limited public awareness of cases to act as a hard deterrent effect is both appalling and expected at the same time. It conveniently plays into those parties' hands who wish to see discontent, conflict, and a lack of enforceable rule of law at sea.
“With chaos, comes business opportunity and enrichment.
“It has been left to the established UN tripartite structure at the International Labor Organization (ILO), the efforts of unions, honest brokers in the industry, civil society, media and those coastal, flag and port state authorities with mature national laws and resourced enforcement resources to best protect workers. That must continue unabated.
“Nonetheless, we are operating in a constantly failing model. Occasionally with one step forward closely followed by a few steps back.
“Maybe we are looking at this interrelated global business services and maritime goods movement by sea issue through the wrong lens. One that is underpinned by an ingrained existential hope of change; a core human trait which sustains us, but which is the core weakness to realistic understanding of our arguably terminal trajectory.
“In the alternative, we should grudgingly accept the hard and often unspoken truths which can be exampled by:
– A rapidly growing global population with unsustainable finite earth resource extraction.
– Systemic and expanding wealth inequality.
– Global conflict and rapid expansionism of state hegemony.
– AI and technological advances replacing human beings without societal impact yet understood.
– International fragmentation of the previous tentatively accepted rules of international law.
– Rising nationalism and fractured blended societies.
– The fact that everyone is disposable and replaceable, and that the most destructive force on the planet is homo sapiens.
“In sum, the global human development system in one sense is broken. In another sense, it is working perfectly for those entities and individuals who are quick enough to exploit the workers needing to earn enough to pay basic bills and at worst, survive. This includes the maritime industry,” Hammond expounded in his piece.
“But there are those of us who will hold the veneer thin line of responsible oversight and constant actions to affect change for those without voice or agency to do so. The cost of which is invariably personal and for many committed human rights defenders, terminal.
“The whispered truth is this. Seafarers and maritime workers are, and always will be disposable assets,” Hammond candidly said.
He compared this situation with George Orwell’s book, "Animal Farm," with its insightful societal lessons for those who have, those who do not and the inescapable politics of power.
“Let us hope that we do not fragment into a 'Hunger Games' reality but if we do, at least we were on notice,” he concluded.