According to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO), more than 6,000 people lose their lives every day worldwide due to work-related illnesses and accidents. This translates to 2.3 million deaths per year—more than double the number of deaths from road traffic accidents, armed conflict, homicide, and other leading non-natural causes. Moreover, non-fatal work-related accidents and diseases number 400 million per year, and in many cases workers are forced to take long periods off work. The economic burden of inadequate occupational safety is estimated to be equivalent to 4% of global GDP. Relative to the size of the labor force, the worst-affected regions are Sub-Saharan Africa, the former Soviet Union, and South Asia.

Work-related fatal accidents occur in so-called “3K” jobs (dirty, dangerous, and demanding), and such working conditions are common in the world’s poorest regions. This article highlights shipbreaking as an example of a 3K job. The main sites are in South Asia, which is the most affected.

Shipbreaking work, Bangladesh (Photo: Stéphane M. Grueso CC BY-SA 2.0)

What is shipbreaking?

What happens to ships that are no longer in use? Traditionally, unusable ships were left to decay in so-called ship graveyards. Today, influenced by waste management regulations, ships at these graveyards are dismantled in ways that allow the metal to be recycled. This practice is known as “shipbreaking,” and everything is recycled down to the last nut and bolt and every steel plate.

Shipbreaking employs hundreds of thousands of people in the world’s poorest countries, with India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan standing out. According to the latest statistics compiled by the NGO “Shipbreaking Platform (Shipbreaking Platform),” more than three-quarters of scrapped oceangoing vessels are dismantled on the shores of these countries. If measured by weight (tons) rather than the number of ships, South Asia’s share is even larger. China and Turkey follow, and the share accounted for by other regions is almost negligible.

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Why are shipbreaking yards “3K”? The human cost

It may seem environmentally friendly, but shipbreaking is extremely dangerous when carried out irresponsibly. Unfortunately, that has long been the norm. 2016 was the worst year in the industry’s history. On November 1, a tanker beached on the shore of Gadani, Pakistan exploded and caught fire, killing at least 28 people instantly and injuring more than 50. That same year in Bangladesh, 22 people died and 29 workers suffered severe injuries such as loss of limbs. Considering that many accidents go unreported (and are often covered up), the real numbers are much higher.

In these countries, the impact of a worker’s injury or death is particularly severe. High birth rates mean household sizes tend to be among the largest in the world, and many of the men working in shipbreaking are the primary or sole breadwinners supporting families of five or more.

The reasons for the high rates of injury and death go beyond accidents. Current recycling practices are not considered approved by the International Labour Organization (ILO) or the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The lack of safety equipment to properly handle large oceangoing vessels leads to mishaps. Most ships contain large amounts of hazardous substances such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), tributyltin, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which can lead to life-threatening diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Young men injured in shipbreaking, Bangladesh (Photo: Bellona Foundation CC BY-NC-SA)

To make matters worse, beyond repeated accidents and deplorable, dangerous working conditions, working hours and pay at shipbreaking yards amount to what could be called modern slavery. For example, Chittagong in eastern Bangladesh is the world’s largest shipbreaking area and produces 60% of all the steel used in Bangladesh, yet many workers there work 14-hour shifts, six days a week, for less than US$5 per day. Most are migrants from rural areas and live in crowded shacks near the yards. The technology used in shipbreaking is not advanced, and it can take months for young men using only sledgehammers and metal cutters to dismantle a ship.

Finally, the psychological effects of working in such harsh environments are rarely even mentioned. Outside of conflict, the daily struggle with poverty and harsh living conditions is a major cause of depression among people in developing countries. Only recently has attention been paid to depression in developing countries, and it is now recognized as a serious problem with high human costs. In developing countries, access to medical services is limited, so people with mental health issues often go undiagnosed and untreated. However, recent studies point out that such problems are precisely what undermine global productivity and people’s health and lives. A survey conducted in rural India found that of 1,000 people at risk, almost half—430—were depressed. Another survey of rural India found that 39.6% of the entire community suffered from mild to moderate depression. These figures show how great the impact of undesirable working conditions such as shipbreaking sites can be.

Shipbreaking work, Bangladesh (Photo: Adam Cohn CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Who is responsible?

Responsibility for irresponsible practices in the shipbreaking industry lies with both shipowners who dump oceangoing vessels in South Asia and the managers of shipbreaking yards. Profit-seeking shipowners prefer selling to South Asian yards over conducting high-standard recycling, because doing so nets them an additional US$1–4 million per ship. Shipowners shift their responsibility by going through scrap intermediaries (cash buyers). In practice, all ships beached in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India pass through cash buyers.

But where do the 900 oceangoing vessels scrapped each year come from? In 2016, they came from Greece, China, Germany, South Korea, and Japan. The European Union (EU) as a whole accounted for 43% of all ships abandoned in 2016, and although EU law prohibits EU-flagged ships from being dismantled on Asian beaches, shipowners can easily change flags, making the rules largely ineffective. Greek shipping companies sold the most ships to South Asian shipbreaking yards in 2016 and consistently choose dirty, dangerous shipbreaking. With backing from the Greek government, owners continue to deny legal responsibility toward workers and the environment. The situation is similar for shipowners in other countries.

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Given that 21% of the world’s merchant fleet is registered in Panama and 12% in Liberia, some may wonder why the countries listed earlier are the largest disposers. The reason lies in the practice of “flags of convenience,” whereby shipowners register their vessels under the flag of a country other than their own. This allows shipowners to avoid regulations imposed by their own countries, such as stricter safety standards. It also enables them to cut operating costs and circumvent laws designed to secure seafarers’ working conditions and wages.

Interestingly, as of 2008, more than half of the world’s merchant ships were registered under flags-of-convenience countries such as Panama and Liberia. Thus, on the surface, the ships being scrapped belong to these two countries, but the beneficial owners—the ones who actually profit—are in most cases from the five countries mentioned above. Measured by weight (tons) rather than the number of ships, Greece had long been the world’s largest shipowning nation, but it was overtaken by Japan ten years ago. Japan became the largest fleet, with Germany and China ranking third and fourth, respectively. From the flags-of-convenience perspective, a 2014 UNCTAD study reported that Japan again ranked first by tonnage, with 92% of its fleet under foreign flags.

Launching ceremony of the Panama-flagged “Queen KOBE,” built in Kobe (Photo: OpenCage.info CC BY-SA 2.5)

However, it bears repeating that shipowners do not bear all the responsibility. In South Asian shipbreaking, it is well known that basic labor rights, international laws on transboundary waste movements, and international environmental protection standards are not respected. As noted above, work at these yards is an example of exploitation—indeed, it can even be described as modern slavery—and yard operators bear significant responsibility.

Is there a solution?

Given the exploitation in shipbreaking, one might think the yards should be abolished. But the solution is not that simple. South Asia has a vast number of people and widespread poverty. These create a vicious cycle in which workers are treated as expendable—not only in shipbreaking. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh together account for more than 23% of the world’s population, with astonishingly high population density.

Take Bangladesh as an example: it has a larger population than Russia, but an area 1/115 the size. And about one-fifth of its people still live in extreme poverty. Using the World Bank’s definition, this refers to living on less than US$2 per day at 2011 purchasing power parity. In this context, outsourcing in shipbreaking and other industries such as apparel provides many people in extreme poverty with a means of livelihood, and abolishing these industries could push workers in the world’s poorest regions into dire straits.

Therefore, rather than shutting down shipbreaking yards, building an effective and binding legal framework would be a more reasonable solution. Unfortunately, there has been little progress. Under pressure from labor groups, in 2009 the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization adopted the 46-page Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (HKC). The convention requires shipowners and states to ensure there are no adverse effects on human health and safety or on the environment, and it sets guidelines for the proper use and handling of hazardous substances in the shipbreaking industry.

That was ten years ago, but the convention has not entered into force because the conditions have not been met. Entry into force requires ratification by at least 15 countries whose combined merchant fleets represent at least 40% of the world total by gross tonnage. Currently, only six countries have ratified, representing 20% of the world’s merchant fleet by gross tonnage: Belgium, Denmark, France, Norway, Panama, and the Republic of the Congo. Notably absent are the largest scrapping nations—Greece, China, Germany, South Korea, and Japan—none of which has signed or ratified the convention. Furthermore, even if the required countries were to ratify, it would still take 24 months to enter into force.

Nikos Mikelis, a non-executive director at GMS (Note 1), expects the convention is likely to enter into force within the next five to seven years, and that more countries will begin to join in 2018. He emphasizes that some progress can already be seen: of the 120 yards in Alang, India, 41 meet HKC standards; another 15 are improving toward safer and cleaner working environments; and major shipping companies such as Maersk are entering into arrangements with individual yards. However, it is clear that much more needs to be done on all fronts. How many more victims will there be at South Asian shipbreaking yards before there is real change?

Writer: Yani Karavasilev

Translation: Ryo Kobayashi

Note 1: According to GMS, “GMS is the world’s largest and the only ISO 9001 certified cash buyer for ship recycling. GMS has also developed the Green Ship Recycling Program (GSRP), the first and only such program by a cash buyer, to achieve the highest levels of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the ship recycling industry.”