Galley slaves
France Bequette
On the waterfront in the French port of Le Havre, seamen wait to be hired.
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The sea. What joy to know it is so near. Of course we seldom went to the sea, but that doesn't matter. It's there, and that's that, behind the mountains, a few dozen kilometres from home . . . . It's because of the mountains that we seldom went to the sea. Jean Portante |
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Treasure hunters Faced with advanced technology, laws full of loopholes and
the growing number of treasure hunters and sports divers, several international organizations,
working under UNESCO’s auspices, are drawing up an international convention to preserve
underwater heritage. But what exactly would it aim to protect? S. W. |
Don is from Sri Lanka. I met him in the Greek port of Piraeus. A victim of his country’s civil war, his wife and two of his three children were killed when someone blew up the bus they were on. To support his surviving child, Don decided to go to sea. In Madras, he embarked on a freighter bound for Canada.
When the ship called at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Don checked the time it was due to leave before going ashore. But when he came back earlier than the scheduled embarkation time, the ship was gone. He had no identity papers—the captain had confiscated them when he signed up—and no money. He was taken in at a seamen’s hostel where he managed to find legal assistance.
To prove he was telling the truth, Don wrote a long, detailed report on the ship’s cargo and on events that had occurred during the voyage and gave the names of the rest of the crew. The document was sent to the Center for Seamen’s Rights in New York, where it was checked and certified as accurate. The Canadian agents of the ship’s Greek owner were ordered to buy Don a plane ticket home, but they refused to pay him his back wages.
Don, who still works at sea despite his ordeal, is a modern-day galley slave—exploited, badly paid or not paid at all—recruited by a front company to crew dilapidated ships often flying a flag of convenience.
One-third of the world’s 37,000 cargo ships fly such flags. There is no link between the shipowner and the country of registration. All the owner has to do is sign up at a consulate anywhere in the world and pay. According to one London University transport economist, “companies register their ships under these flags so as to maximize profits and minimize costs by avoiding economic regulations and requirements which apply to vessels registered in their own countries.”
They are spoiled for choice—twenty-seven countries offer the facility, which is purely a matter of money. Registering a ship in Cyprus is 65 per cent cheaper than in Greece and even less expensive if the country chosen is a tax haven like Panama, Bermuda or Gibraltar. Such flags mean there are no rules on hiring practices or working conditions to follow. The crews have no trade union protection or social security benefits. In fact, they have no rights at all.
On the dockside in Piraeus, seamen from the Philippines, Malaysia, Ghana and Chile all had grim tales to tell. One man who refused to clean the ship’s toilets was tethered to the mast by a 1.5-metre chain for two days without water on the equator, and then locked in his cabin. Another told how his ship ran out of food for the last eight days of its voyage and the crew survived by catching a shark. Another seaman recalled how his ship’s freezers, full of Senegalese shrimps, broke down and the crew had to eat their rotting contents day after day.
Yet thousands compete for such jobs, ready to pay anything from $300 to $1,000 to be taken on, after buying a passport, seaman’s papers and sometimes an officer’s or engineer’s certificate, all of them available on the quiet at ports from Piraeus to Lagos. Some captains confiscate the crew’s papers as soon as they embark, reducing them to slaves.
International organizations concerned with these issues have their work cut out. After more than a decade of negotiations, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) drafted an international ship registration agreement in 1986 aimed at preventing shipowners from dodging their responsibilities by vanishing into thin air whenever a problem arises. Twelve years later, it is still not in force because fewer than forty countries have ratified it. A code of conduct has been approved by fifty-seven countries but rejected by those which offer flags of convenience.
In 1996 the International Labour Organisation adopted seven new recommendations on the hiring of seamen and their pay, hours and working conditions. The countries that ratify them agree to carry out inspections and publish the results. But inspectors are few and far between.
Owners of ships that fly flags of convenience are under no legal obligation to keep their vessels in good repair or look after their crews. Says Michael Roussos, a Greek Jesuit who helps stranded sailors in Piraeus: “If only ships could weep!”