Stopping bullying and harassment at sea by being kind

LAST year, a survey by ship manager Danica found that one in 20 seafarers – “roughly one on every ship” – reported having experienced bullying, while 4 per cent felt they had been discriminated against because of race, and 1 per cent said they had experienced sexual harassment.

As it happens, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is developing training requirements to combat bullying and harassment, including sexual harassment, at sea. 

At a joint meeting between the IMO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) on the issue in London in late February, IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez said: “We remain steadfast in our commitment to creating a safe and respectful working environment on board. Recognising that this is not only a moral imperative but also a practical necessity for the industry’s sustainable growth, we are committed to preventing and combatting bullying and harassment in the maritime sector.” 

That meeting was followed by a session of the ILO/IMO Tripartite Working Group (JTWG), which exists to “identify and address challenges seafarers face in their line of work”. The JTWG looked at practical steps to protect seafarers from bullying. Specifically, it considered draft amendments to the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) Code, to prevent and respond to bullying and harassment in the maritime sector, including sexual assault and sexual harassment.   

The JTWG’s recommendations will be considered by IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee will consider the JTWG’s recommendations at its next meeting in May 2024, and will also be submitted to ILO’s Governing Body. 

Just before the JTWG meeting, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) launched a set of “industry principles for establishing effective measures to combat and eliminate harassment and bullying in the maritime sector”. 

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ICS pointed to a report by ILO, together with Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF) and Gallup, on experiences of violence and harassment at work. The report was based on a survey of 74,364 respondents across a range of sectors in 121 countries and territories. It found that one in five people have experienced violence and harassment at work, whether physical, psychological or sexual.

ICS director of employment affairs Helio Vicente commented: “Although the data from the global ILO-LRF-Gallup report does not cover cases onboard ships, the figures do point to a need for all industries and sectors to ensure that they do the utmost to prevent harassment and bullying. The maritime sector is no exception and must continue to take the issue very seriously. This includes having suitable policies and complementary measures in place to address it.”

“The impact of violence and harassment, when experienced by seafarers on board is significant, since a ship is often a seafarer’s home for many months,” he added. 

In fact, the Danica survey suggested that significantly fewer seafarers were subject to bullying or harassment compared to respondents to the ILO survey. One would like to think that it was because bullying is less prevalent at sea. But is that wishful thinking?

There could be many reasons behind the survey’s results. For instance, the answers can depend on the precise wording of questions, as well as respondents’ understanding of what constitutes bullying and harassment.

At a recent conference, a female officer cadet was asked if she would recommend going to sea as a good career for a woman. Her answer was: “Yes, but you have to be tough.” I suspect that young woman has a relatively high threshold before considering herself a bullying or harassment victim.

In its policy paper, ICS set out five general and eight detailed principles that shipping companies should adopt regarding the issue. These include clearly defining and communicating what “harassment and bullying” means. The principles also emphasise the value of establishing unambiguous company complaint procedures that cover the shoreside and all shipboard departments with a dedicated complaint manager.

Many big shipping companies and ship managers are likely to adopt these principles and indeed may already have done so. But whether they will be readily followed across the vast global shipping industry, comprising as it does of many relatively small enterprises and reflecting many cultures, is a different matter.

ICS has also submitted a separate paper to the JTWG emphasising that “company policies and initiatives alone will not suffice to address the issue”.

Tim Springett, chair of the ICS Labour Affairs Committee said that while shipowners are responsible for implementing shipboard policies and complementary measures to eliminate harassment and bullying from ships, national governments and seafarers’ unions also have important roles to play.

He added: “Unions can raise awareness and set expectations for their members, including appropriate deterrents, while all states should review their national civil and criminal codes to verify consistency with requirements of ILO’s Maritime Labour Convention and Violence and Harassment Convention, both of which apply to the maritime sector.” 

The seafarers’ unions are perhaps the bodies most able to change attitudes among their members. After all, both perpetrators and victims are likely to be the subject of collective crewing agreements. More needs to be done to raise awareness so that fellow crew members are willing to raise the alarm if they realise that somebody is being treated inappropriately.

These initiatives by the IMO and ICS are welcome, but there is a problem with treating the issue of harassment and bullying in isolation. The culture onboard a ship is crucial. It is difficult for perpetrators to get away with their behaviour if there is a caring and supportive culture onboard and within the wider company.

Regular readers of this column may recall that in October last year, I wrote about an initiative by the Maritime Professional Council (MPC) of the UK. It had just published a major report, simply titled Kind Leadership, that argued such an approach can transform leadership and safety culture, and improve the well-being of individuals.

The MPC argued that there is a lack of focus on proper leadership and soft skills in current STCW training that needs to be addressed. It wants to see kind leadership integrated into a modernised cadet curriculum and also shipping companies to implement and evaluate mentoring on their ships. 

I wrote in the Oct 25 Strait Talk that it would be “a great shame if an initiative that has been developed – and now endorsed – by people with practical experience of the industry were to be rejected without being given the thought it deserves”.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what appears to have happened so far with the IMO’s handling of the bullying and harassment issue. It is to be hoped that those senior members of the industry who support the kind leadership approach will have their say before the revised STCW is set in stone.