Rajendra Singh Yadav, sailor and second officer with M V Yasemin S, died on March 1 this year in Istanbul. Five months later, his family is still awaiting insurance payment or compensation from his employer.
Worse, nobody knows who will pay the compensation -- the Mumbai-based KNK Ship Management, the recruitment agency which sent him to the ship, or Albany Shipping Inc of Marshall Island, which was the owner of the ship?
KNK, according to media reports, claims it is only a recruitment agency and its role was limited to arranging Yadav's tickets and departure to Turkey on behalf of Albany. It also claims that Yadav had entered into a contract with Albany directly, and hence the liabilities, if any, have to borne by the shipping line.
The matter has now reached the shipping ministry, which is trying to negotiate with the shipping line, apparently with no results so far. Meanwhile, Yadav's family is resigned to an endless wait for justice.
Yadav's case is by no means the only one of its kind. A few years ago, sailors of three ships abandoned by their employers in the United Arab Emirates were so desperate for food that they offered to sell their blood to survive.
The 42 sailors from India, Bangladesh, Iran and Iraq were left without salary or supplies since the ships' owners fled the country after taking a loan from a local bank. While the ships lay idle in the port of Fujairah, the sailors ended up being stranded on the vessel for over six months.
Or, consider this. A couple of years ago, two foreign shipping companies went into liquidation all of a sudden. The result was that the Indian seamen were deprived of all their entitlements as the agents were left with no funds to disburse to them.
For Indian shipping companies, there are no provisions to meet this kind of unforeseen circumstance. This lacunae in the law was exposed when a series of Indian companies went into liquidation. In these instances, seamen were not able to recover their wages even after 10 years of waiting.
These three examples are typical of the problems Indian seafarers face while working on foreign vessels. India is home to the second largest number of seafarers at 120,000 after the Philippines. A majority of the seafarers (20,000 officers and 100,000 seamen) are employed on foreign flag vessels since the tonnage of the Indian owned fleet is only about 7 million tonnes.
The point is these problems are nothing new. On its part, the government has adopted various measures for promoting the welfare of seafarers.
The liability of shipowners to pay compensation for injury to or death of seafarers caused by accidents arising out of and in the course of employment has been widely accepted.
India has not ratified the International Labour Organisation convention, but statutory provision has been made in the Merchant Shipping Act under which the articles of agreement should stipulate inter alia the compensation payable by shipowners.
The periodic agreements between Indian as well as certain foreign shipowners and seafarers' unions contain explicit provisions regarding death and disability compensation. Also detailed manning rules have been framed, which will be effective from September this year.
So the legal provisions and statutory protections are intact, but the real problem lies with enforcement. Grievances are arising mainly because of the lax implementation of existing legal principles and standards.
Lloyds List quotes the National Union of Seafarers of India as alleging that 30 per cent of Indian seafarers suffer at the hands of recruitment agents who represent foreign-flag owners.
After signing articles of agreement, gullible seamen are forced to contribute a portion of their wages to these agents, who recruit Indian seamen desperate for jobs, which offer low wages and poor service conditions. There are thousands of qualified seamen looking for jobs, so bogus agents demand bribes and offer jobs to those who can give them the highest kickbacks.
Helen Sampson of the Seafarers International Research Centre, Cardiff University, points out several other problems. The ILO conventions designed to protect minimum living standards aboard a ship have been ratified by only a few countries and largely ignored by Port State Control inspectors worldwide. Many seafarers, therefore, continue to work and live aboard substandard ships and have little job security and work long hours, often seven days a week.
Sampson says a modern vessel may be owned in one part of the world, technically managed from another, crewed by a number of others, and registered in a different one again.
In addition, it operates across and between national borders and in its lifetime might never once visit its country of registration. Thus the ethnic identity attached to ships as work and living spaces is somewhat indeterminate.