Other than losing their life at sea or being severely injured, one of the worst things that can happen to a seafarer is being “abandoned”.

According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that happens when “shipowners fail to fulfil obligations to seafarers related to timely repatriation, payment of outstanding wages or salary, and even the provision of basic necessities such as food, accommodation and medical care”.  

That definition comes from a report on the outcomes of the IMO’s Legal Committee’s week-long meeting that concluded on Monday (Apr 29) this week.

When looking into the abandonment issue, we are peering into the murky parts of the shipping industry: unscrupulous owners, shell companies, ineffective flag states, corrupt crewing agencies – the list goes on.

Moreover, the problem is getting worse. Possibly this is partly linked to the emergence of a “shadow fleet” operating outside the regulations governing international shipping and engaged in moving sanctioned cargoes.

Incidentally, the IMO committee highlighted the need to combat fraudulent ship registrations and the unlawful use of IMO identification number schemes, something associated with the shadow fleet. Such efforts, it says, “include addressing measures to be exercised by flag-state administrations, in line with their obligations to have adequate control over their ships”.

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Returning to the issue of abandonment, the committee says there has been an “alarming” rise in the number of cases reported on the abandonment database jointly maintained by the IMO and the International Labour Organization (ILO). These cases include a “considerable number that remain unresolved”.

According to the database, 142 new cases were reported in 2023, compared with 109 in 2022, 95 in 2021 and 85 in 2020. Going back further, it is abundantly clear that the situation has worsened. The IMO said: “Previously, between 40 and 55 incidents were reported each year between 2017 and 2019, while a range of 12 to 19 cases were reported per year between 2011 and 2016.  In the first four months of 2024, 100 cases were reported. Thus, the numbers are likely to surpass last year’s record of reported cases of abandonment.”

In January, the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) – the global seafarer unions’ organisation – released slightly lower figures for abandoned vessels in 2023, at 132. Of this, 129 had been reported by the ITF.

The ITF said more than US$12.1 million in unpaid wages was owed to the crew in the 129 cases it oversaw. The organisation said it was contacted by 1,676 seafarers from abandoned vessels – of these, more than 400 were Indian nationals.

As at January, the ITF received more than US$10.9 million in owed wages from 60 of these vessels. But it noted then: “The final figure will exceed US$12.1 million as cases take time to resolve and as other seafarers come forward, thereby increasing the amount of recoverable wages.”

Among the ITF’s cases last year was the Yangtze Harmony, a ship arrested in October 2022 in Singapore over an unpaid fuel bill. The shipowner had stopped paying the entire crew, leaving them without wages or a way to get home. By April 2023, the crew were owed US$429,972.

The ITF says the Harmony’s Hong Kong-based shipowner had a long history of abandoning crew, and its vessels had been detained before for violating safety and crew welfare rules. This same owner had abandoned another vessel, the Yangtze Fortune. It took the ITF months of advocacy to recover US$1 million in back pay and arrange flights home for the 43 crew members of the two vessels.

ITF inspectorate coordinator Steve Trowsdale didn’t mince his words, saying: “The ongoing rise in the number of seafarer abandonments is unacceptable. It is a consequence of an industry where the seafarer can be a throwaway commodity.

“Seafarers and their families pay the ultimate price for the greed and non-compliance of ship owners, enduring the inhuman consequences of a system that compromises their well-being, dignity and basic human rights. ITF inspectors do an incredible job in holding to account those shipowners that try to get away with treating seafarers like some sort of modern-day slave.”

I don’t always agree with the ITF, but I do on this issue.

So what can be done about this growing problem? The IMO has established a new task force “to review and update (or redevelop) the joint ILO/IMO abandonment database, including all procedural, policy, financial and technical aspects”.

The IMO says that the task force will submit a report for further consideration by the Joint ILO/IMO Tripartite Working Group (JTWG) to identify and address such seafarers’ issues. The JTWG will conduct a final review and provide a clear report to the ILO Governing Body and the IMO Legal Committee for endorsement.

Good luck with all of that bureaucratic activity. Unfortunately, the flag states mainly involved in abandonment cases are not the ones paying close attention to IMO guidelines and regulations. The ITF gave the following numbers for abandonment cases and linked flag states: Panama: 23, Palau: 12, Cameroon: 11, St Kitts & Nevis: 8, Unknown: 8 (are these linked to the shadow fleet?), Comoros: 6, Tanzania: 6 and Togo: 6.

That doesn’t total 129, but it does give a good idea of the flag states frequently involved in abandonment cases.

Maybe the IMO can eventually put more pressure on certain flag states to get a grip on the abandonment issue. In the meantime, more power to the ITF’s elbow, and to the various maritime charities assisting abandoned seafarers.