The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has recently publicised details of an alarming rise in ship abandonments.
Abandonment will be familiar to many MtS people, but probably not to all. It occurs when a ship owner/operator simply ceases all contact with their vessel and its crew. Often this will be an older vessel of low residual value. It will frequently happen in areas that are less rigorous in enforcing the maritime conventions. It is likely to have been preceded by a period of some months during which the crew will not have been paid.
The crew are left aboard without water, food and fuel. They will probably not have visas to get ashore, and no money to buy what they need even if they did. Similarly, they can’t fly home to escape. Even if they did, and despite the fact that it is they who have been abandoned, if they do leave for home, it is they who are judged to have abandoned the vessel and broken their contract. They therefore lose all rights to unpaid wages, which can be catastrophic for them and their families.
Whether or not you have encountered an abandonment, I expect you will realise what a difficult, dangerous, and isolated position abandoned seafarers find themselves in. As you reflect on that, I would like to offer you three thoughts to add to your own:
- MtS possesses an unusual and particular strength in supporting abandoned seafarers. We are committed to working in person in over 200 ports and over 50 countries around the world. Others may be able to sympathise or make telephone calls. We can offer essential practical support on the ground to save seafarers’ lives. Because we have our Family Support Network in The Philippines, and those growing in India and Myanmar, we can keep families in touch, ease their worries, and pierce the dreadful isolation of abandonment. Once again, as in so many other ways, we have the strength to respond because we are both Global and Local – we are, as I’ve observed before, GLOCAL.
- Such justice and welfare matters have been part of our work for many years. As a particular focus, it was pioneered by a man called The Revd Ken Good who served the Mission both as a chaplain and as Assistant Secretary General for nearly 40 years. These years of service overlapped with those of Bishop Bill Down as Secretary General. Both these great servants to seafarers have died recently, and as I think with gratitude of our current work on abandonments, it is good also to pause and remember those who, years ago, laid the foundations for what we are today. I suspect that many readers of this blog will have their own “Mission Heroes”, as my predecessor The Revd Canon Andrew Wright used to call such people.
- Thinking for a moment about the very idea of abandonment and the Christian concern from which the work of MtS springs, has me reflecting on the words, “God forsaken”. In some ways, to be marooned in a floating prison in blistering heat or cold, without food or water, might easily qualify for being, “God forsaken”. Yet, in Christian thought, those words actually have no meaning at all. There is no place to which we can go in life where God will not be present with us. Just as the work of MtS people reassures seafarers that they are not forsaken by humanity, it says also that they are not forsaken by God.
