May6, 2021

Anna Murray 

On May 6th, the United Nations (UN) published new guidelines to protect seafarers’ human rights, considering new COVID variants and outbreaks would lead to further delay in crews’ turnover. The UN Global Compact, the UN Human Rights Office, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) work together and develop “The Human Rights Due Diligence Tool”, a large-scale human rights checklist for all businesses related to the maritime industry.

According to the agencies, there are currently about 200,000 cargo ship seafarers, beyond the length of their contracts, while the number could be back to the September 2020 highs of 400,000, since COVID-19 travel restrictions forced together again.

The Human Rights Due Diligence Tool intends to make sure crew stranded at sea have their rights protected in the fields of physical and mental health, access to family life and freedom of movement.

Photo:webshot.