Does our Seafarers Maritime Slaves of the 21st Century ? – Asraf Ibn Noor (5th Batch)

Case -1: 

In March 2015, 4(four) Bangladeshi Seafarers had joined Panama flagged Oil Tanker MT ASTERIS. Greek Ship Management company, Western Mediterranean Shipping, had an agreement with oil tanker MT ASTERIS owner M/s. Sea Crown Maritime. Local Bangladeshi agent was M/s. Reliance Shipping.
The vessel was arrested in Lagos with its crews for smuggling of (cargo) crude oil. 5(five) Filipino and 4(four) Bangladeshi seafarers were under trial in the Lagos Federal Court and were held in prison. The Trial started from 18 June 2015. On 15 December of that year, they were convicted on the charge of smuggling the cargo of crude oil by the court. It is understood that no Lawyers were even to represent the seafarers.
They were sentenced to five years in prison if they did not pay a fine of 20 million Naira (approximately USD100,000) each. The ship owner refused to pay the fines. The owner abandoned them along with the few months’ salary he owned them.
The relatives and the Bangladeshi crews’ colleagues presented their case at the Annual Dinner of JMAAA 2nd. Jan.2016, and the plight went into circulation round the world.
The response from Bangladeshi Mariners around the world. The generosity of Bangladeshi Mariners was such that we raised the sum needed within three months. The Fines were paid to the Nigerian Court, the seafarers were released from jail and were repatriated to Bangladesh on 2 May 2016.
ITF became involved at a much latter dater, after the Nigerian Court has already declared its’ sentence. ITF legal department reviewed the Nigerian Federal Court order of the imprisoned seafarers and noted that the ‘Seafarers were wrongfully convicted’ and as such, they had taken over the case and filed an Appeal against the conviction in the higher court of Nigeria. Few days before the court of appeal rejected the appeal and upheld the decision of the Federal High Court. Unfortunately, ITF will not provide financial support for further appeal. This is because they do not feel there is a good prospect of success and because they have already expended a large amount in this case. As there is no way to find justice in a failed country like Nigeria ( where Law is a commodity) ITF put off its hands from the case so those innocent seafarers will remain convicted in their full life unless they make re-appeal by their own money ( USD 15000 approx cost) , we all can understand that it’s not worthy to appeal again. These seafarers did not receive a single dollar during those 15 months.
Why Seafarers should face these consequences for no fault of them ???
What happened with the Bangladeshi Manning Agents’ Local and International Insurance coverage of the crews they send to work on board ???

Case-2:

11 Bangladeshi crew joined M.V. Diamond-8 at My Thoi port, Vietnam on 28th March 2018. It was a China-based company named “Circle Ocean International Shipping Co.”, Ltd. and their Bangladeshi Manning Agent was “AYAR SHIPPING SERVICE”.
On 12th April vessel reached Zamboanga, Philippine for discharging cargo. On the 14th evening, Philippine Navy boarded the vessel and arrested the crew and vessel as they did not have any permission for discharging. As per various mail, we have received from the seafarers on board, We have come to know that Captain could not show the legal documents for discharging. There were no documents for discharging in any port of Philippine. This should be noted that Philippine does not allow any import of rice.
Thus, all 15 crew including more than 50 Philippines discharge gang labour were arrested. Philippines Navy brought the vessel to Zamboanga Anchorage. Crew waited there indefinite time until they started to raise their voice through the social media and through private communication. JMAAA took the matter very seriously in the light of its past Nigerian experience. JMAAA was the first to issue letter to MoS, MoFA, MoS and started to ring the bell everywhere including BD embassy in Philippine, also proposed to appoint a lawyer at earliest through the embassy, so that Nigerian saga does not repeat itself. We have experienced the lawyer appointed by owner always looks after the owners’ interest and same feedback were echoed from the Crews of the vessel. Trail of the event was very concerning as there was no proper document for Cargo discharging in Philippine so it is easily understandable that owner had engaged the vessel in smuggling or some other purpose, which was not known by the innocent seafarers. We have seen a number of prostrate mails from seafarers regarding lack of provision and insecurity, due to imprisonment by the navy. After the collective effort from mariners organization, society, manning agent, Government efforts, specially ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of shipping and Bangladeshi embassy in Philippines, seafarers sailed out from Philippines after completion of cargo discharge ( which was probably allowed with special permission). We regret to inform that “All the crew has been banned by the government of Philippines to enter ever in their territory to sec 29(a)5 and sec 29(a)17 of commonwealth act no.613”. The crews can only get a waiver from this banned, provided they pay a Fine of US$ 1,000.00 with undertaking of not to get involved in such operations.

Above two cases has one thing in common that at the end of the day only seafarers are the victims. Is it not easy to get a job/visa in anywhere in the world or any Shipping company, if you are convicted on criminal charge or you are prohibited to enter a country when as a nation we already have certificate restriction in numerous flags and as well as visa restrictions ???

A few Basic Questions comes in mind from the above are :
1. Did the crew join the same ship as per the government shipping office article ??
2. Did their salary has been paid at the home port, if so how and was it full payment after completion of each month ??
3. Did the joining crews had any Valid SEA( Seafarer Employment Agreement ) while joining ??
4. Did they pay any illegal service charge before joining ship or after sign off ??
5. Did Manning agent checked the insurance of the vessel before sending crew ??
6. Does the manning Agent cover themselves with International Insurance ??
7. Does the DG Shipping ensure such Insurance coverage to offset any unwanted situation as above ??
8. Does the MoS and DoS has any standard operating System to handle such unwanted incidents/situations ??

Due to the huge number of unemployed seafarers in the job market, we have seen a lot of a number of new agencies got registration from DoS. The worst outcome of such practices are the Manning Agencies who are charging seafarers for providing a job. This ‘give money for job’ cycle is not limited in Bangladesh but these agencies make the right use of the time and situation and asking 5 lakh(Tk. 500,000.00) from each cadet for completing the sea time. Once an agency started this practice, it becomes persistence practice. In not so distant past identity document has been withheld and ‘debt bondage’ is akin to the illegal practice of some crewing agents.

In spite of the clear prohibition of the Maritime Labor Convention 2006, there are significant cases where seafarers are forced to pay a significant amount of money to secure a position on board, only to find they don’t get paid the amount promised.
These Crews may have taken a loan to pay for the job, have a family to support and no wages to maintain repayments. The debts may be to the third parties but the result is still the same. And most the Manning Agencies taking service charges are sending seafarers to the substandard ships with no guarantee of full payment of the signed contract, which may or may not be there, as all crews are not signed on in Bangladesh Shipping Office.

There are a lot of stories like the above two cases in our archive such as (Bangladeshi second engineer) abandonment in Bramco-1, Bangladeshi crew trapped in TOGO (Lome) and eventually passport expired.

• Did our Department Of Shipping took up the case-1 seriously ??
• Was there any enquiry on the above 2 cases ?
• If so then what was the findings?
• Had any instruction/guidance of any kind had been issued to all the Manning agents by the Govt. Shipping Office to avoid recurrence of such incident ??

We need to identify our System Lapses, Root Causes and develop a System to handle such cases, which would keep on happening for reasons may be beyond our control. We all know ‘Stop gap measure does not work more than once or twice’.

So, all stack holders should be consulted and a System need to be developed for the benefit of the Seafarers. Our aim and objective is to establish a System to avoid reoccurrence of such incidents.

Writer: Asraf Ibn Noor (5th Batch) 
Ex senior vice president Dhaka chamber of commerce and industry