Source: Lloyds List
By Lloyds List Comment
GLAD tidings that in 2010 we now enter the International Maritime Organization’s Year of the Seafarer.
The IMO’s decision to highlight the challenges facing this unsung body comes at a perfect time. No constituency in shipping gets shorter shrift than the legions that take to sea and, as a group, are indispensible to global trade.
Lloyd’s List spends considerable editorial space on mulling the rights and treatment of the world’s seafaring population. Yet within the media and outside our specialist range there’s a frustrating invisibility to this group in the market of public ideas.
Case in point: Somali pirates ushered in the New Year with a flurry of attacks, snatching British and Singaporean flagged vessels in the Gulf of Aden on January 1, bringing to four the number of ships hijacked last week.
Some 100 seafarers were taken hostage, but this total – astounding if similar numbers had mounted in hijackings in so short a time in a related industry such as air transport – has barely produced a blip in the general news.
As Michael Grey pointed out in his column today, the hijacked British flagged, Zodiac-owned vessel St James Park won brief mention on the Sunday news, but the fact that the ship had no Britons on board made it a small news item.
The ship is manned by seafarers from the Philippines, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey and India. Perhaps when the world’s media barons hail from the Philippines or India, captured sailors from non-rich nations may get a bit more airtime.
The IMO has long made laudable efforts to support and improve understanding of the trials and conditions that face those that toil at sea. In 1997, it adopted a resolution to set out its vision, principles and goals to address the human element in shipping, highlighting the importance of seafarers in the web of constituencies that make successful shipping possible.
While seafarers may be all but invisible to the mass media, they also gain indifferent attention from many shipowners, stakeholders best situated to improve seafarers’ conditions.
Our hope is that the Year of the Seafarer will be endorsed by genuine action from shipowners where it really counts: unified support against criminalisation and renewed efforts to improve conditions at sea, despite the crisis-inspired temptation to sheer crew levels.
Better treatment of seafarers will ultimately encourage a new generation consider a life at sea, and can be regarded by shipowners as an investment in their own future.
By Lloyds List Comment
GLAD tidings that in 2010 we now enter the International Maritime Organization’s Year of the Seafarer.
The IMO’s decision to highlight the challenges facing this unsung body comes at a perfect time. No constituency in shipping gets shorter shrift than the legions that take to sea and, as a group, are indispensible to global trade.
Lloyd’s List spends considerable editorial space on mulling the rights and treatment of the world’s seafaring population. Yet within the media and outside our specialist range there’s a frustrating invisibility to this group in the market of public ideas.
Case in point: Somali pirates ushered in the New Year with a flurry of attacks, snatching British and Singaporean flagged vessels in the Gulf of Aden on January 1, bringing to four the number of ships hijacked last week.
Some 100 seafarers were taken hostage, but this total – astounding if similar numbers had mounted in hijackings in so short a time in a related industry such as air transport – has barely produced a blip in the general news.
As Michael Grey pointed out in his column today, the hijacked British flagged, Zodiac-owned vessel St James Park won brief mention on the Sunday news, but the fact that the ship had no Britons on board made it a small news item.
The ship is manned by seafarers from the Philippines, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey and India. Perhaps when the world’s media barons hail from the Philippines or India, captured sailors from non-rich nations may get a bit more airtime.
The IMO has long made laudable efforts to support and improve understanding of the trials and conditions that face those that toil at sea. In 1997, it adopted a resolution to set out its vision, principles and goals to address the human element in shipping, highlighting the importance of seafarers in the web of constituencies that make successful shipping possible.
While seafarers may be all but invisible to the mass media, they also gain indifferent attention from many shipowners, stakeholders best situated to improve seafarers’ conditions.
Our hope is that the Year of the Seafarer will be endorsed by genuine action from shipowners where it really counts: unified support against criminalisation and renewed efforts to improve conditions at sea, despite the crisis-inspired temptation to sheer crew levels.
Better treatment of seafarers will ultimately encourage a new generation consider a life at sea, and can be regarded by shipowners as an investment in their own future.
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