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‘My children ask me when am I coming home’:

stranded seafarers share their frustrations
Unsplash/Kinsey A containter ship sails near Hong Kong Island.

    

19 July 2020 Human Rights (/en/news/topic/human-rights)

Hundreds of thousands of seafarers are nding themselves stranded at sea,

sometimes for over a year, and with no end in sight, as a result of COVID-19 travel
restrictions. The uncertainty and long spells away from home are taking a heavy
mental toll.

“I am tired, exhausted and hopeless. I have been at sea for 12 months already. And I don’t know when I
can see my kids and family. It’s very frustrating.”

Raphael (not his real name) has no idea how long he will be stuck on his ship. A 33 year old seafarer
from the Philippines, with two children, he was scheduled to y home in April, but the pandemic put
paid to his plans: airports have been closed, and his company decided not to relieve him, and eight
other colleagues, some of whom have spent up to 14 months onboard.

“This is the
fourth time
my home
leave has
been
cancelled. I
don’t know
what’s going
on. We
deliver the
cargo and
the goods,
but they
close the
Matt is Chief Engineer on a ship sailing in the Middle East and Asia. Although he has a 10 borders for
week rotation contract, he has been onboard for six months, because of the COVID-19 us.”
(https://www.un.org/coronavirus) pandemic. IMO
Because of
the uncertainty, Raphael says, the atmosphere on the ship is tense, and he fears that there will be an
impact on safety, because of the fragile mental health of the crew: “our minds are in different worlds”,
he says. “It’s like walking on thin air.”
’All we want is to come home’

Some 90 per cent of global trade takes place via maritime transport, thanks to the work of around two
million seafarers. Like Raphael, Matt, an English Chief Engineer onboard a boat that sails mainly in the
Middle East and Asia, feels that the crucial contribution made by seafarers, who ensure that the
transportation of key goods continues unimpeded during the pandemic, should be valued more highly.

“I would say that, as seafarers, we have more than played our part during this pandemic. We have kept
countries supplied with everything they need, including PPE (personal protective equipment) and
medical supplies, oil and gas to keep power stations running, and food and water. All we want in return
is to be able to come home and rest”.

Matt’s contract is well overdue, and most of his crew members are in a similar situation: “The of cers
have 10-week rotation contracts, but most of us have now been onboard for 6 months or more. It is
even worse for the crew: they’re on nine-month contracts, but I have one crewman who has been
onboard for 15 months.

Waiting at home for Matt are two children, aged eight and 12, and the separation is proving dif cult for
all members of his family.
“I’ve done long contracts before, but this is different. It has a psychological effect, as there is no end in
sight. It affects family life a lot more. My children are always asking when am I coming home. It’s
dif cult to explain to them.”

As time has gone on, Matt and the crew have gone through a range of emotions, and the mental health
burden is growing.

“I think we’ve been through all the emotions. A lot of anger in the beginning as we had to watch all the
borders close. We understood the health risk, and we could understand why it was happening. We
tried to remain hopeful, but as time has passed it seems like little has changed. We are hanging in here,
but we are tired and mentally fatigued.”

Isolation on the high seas

Wagner
Brandt is the
Head of the
Transport
and
Maritime
Unit at The

A container ship unloads its cargo at a port. IMO

International Labour Organization (ILO (http://www.ilo.org) ). As a former ship's of cer, he recognizes
the challenges experienced by stranded crew members.

“The sea can be tough. When the weather’s bad it's pretty awful. Also, those onboard are living for
several months in the same place that they're working. These days the industry is highly ef cient, so a
container ship can be unloaded and loaded in a few hours. Ports are now some distance from town
centres and, in the case of oil tankers, you might be discharging or taking on oil, at an off-shore facility.
So, seafarers have fewer opportunities to disembark than they did in the past. It can be very isolating”

Thanks in part to the work of the ILO, conditions for seafarers have steadily improved over the years:
“in 2006, we set up the Maritime Labour Convention, often referred to as the seafarers bill of rights.
This sets out the minimum working conditions for all seafarers, including provisions such as the
minimum hours of rest, occupational safety and health, and states that no seafarers should be at sea
for more than 11 months. Today, the vast majority of the ships in the world are ying the ag of States
that have rati ed this convention.”
“There are still problems, of course, such as low pay, seafarers forced to work long hours, or abuse, but
this is why we have international instruments, to set minimum work standards, and see that they are
enforced.”

These conventions have been sorely tested by the current pandemic, however. Seafarers may have to
travel thousands of kilometres to reach their ships, or return home. Since the pandemic, commercial
ights have been signi cantly reduced, borders have been closed, and it has become more dif cult to
obtain visas or travel permits through certain transit countries.

The unheralded contribution of the seafarer

© UNICEF UNICEF-supported emergency humanitarian supplies are distributed in Hudaydah in June 2018.

To help Matt, Raphael, and the more than 200,000 seafarers struggling to cope with a seemingly
endless stint on the seas, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), set up the Seafarer Crisis
Action Team (SCAT), in partnership with the ILO, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)
and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS). SCAT has successfully intervened in several
individual cases, nding solutions that will allow seafarers to go home.

The IMO is pushing for all governments to classify seafarers and other marine personnel as “essential
workers” which would make it easier for safe crew changeovers to take place. Following a ministerial
summit in July, held in the UK, 13 countries committed to recognizing seafarers as key workers, and
facilitating crew changes.

For Fred Kenney, Director of Legal and External Affairs at IMO, and a former rear admiral in the United
States Coastguard, that can’t come soon enough. “For those seafarers who have been on ships for more
than 15 months, long after their original contracts expired, this represents an incredible strain, as they
often work 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in jobs that are complex and potentially
dangerous. In addition, fatigue is often cited as a cause of accidents in the maritime industry. We are
now in the very dif cult situation that many overly fatigued seafarers have no choice but to continue
working.”
 “Most shipping companies, management companies and hiring agencies are trying to do the right
things and support their people at sea and allow crew changes to happen. It is in everyone’s best
interest to do so. It is now imperative that more governments respond, both for humanitarian reasons
and to ensure the safety of shipping.”

The cause has also been taken up at the highest levels of the UN, with Secretary-General António
Guterres (https://www.un.org/sg/) expressing concern about a growing ocean-bound humanitarian
and safety crisis, and praising the “unheralded contribution” of seafarers to the global economy, and
bringing life-saving supplies to civilians trapped in con ict zones, such as Yemen.

For Matt, the change can’t come soon enough: “We need the support of world governments to allow us
to transit through their countries without restrictions. Time frames for visas need to be reduced or
scrapped all together.

This needs to happen now. The delay is going to have a detrimental effect to the maritime industry.
There has been more than enough time for talking: now we need to see real action.”

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ILO (/EN/TAGS/ILO) | IMO (/EN/TAGS/IMO) | SEAFARERS

(/EN/TAGS/SEAFARERS) | CORONAVIRUS (/EN/TAGS/CORONAVIRUS)

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UN chief calls for seafarers to be designated ‘key workers’, with many stranded at sea
(/en/story/2020/06/1066262)
12 June 2020 Health (/en/news/topic/health)
Due to COVID-related travel restrictions, hundreds of thousands of the world’s two million seafarers have
been “stranded at sea for months”, said the UN chief on Friday, calling for them to be categorized as “key
workers”, during the pandemic.