Seafarers’ Rights International  has marked Day of the Seafarer by calling for stronger international cooperation to protect seafarers caught in the consequences of geopolitical disruption, trade blockages and conflict.

This year’s Day of the Seafarer theme, “Carrying world trade. Carrying the risks,” comes at a time when recent events in and around the Strait of Hormuz have again shown how quickly commercial shipping can be affected by political and security crises. Seafarers often have limited ability to avoid these risks, especially if they think that refusing to travel through high-risk areas could affect their employment.  Around 11,000 seafarers are still stranded, and 14 innocent seafarers lost their lives during the conflict.

Professor Hilton Staniland, CEO of Seafarers’ Rights International, said: “Ships and seafarers carry the vast bulk of the world’s trade. And any significant blockage to that trade has profound worldwide consequences. While the ships carry the cargo; geopolitical events now mean that seafarers carry unacceptable risks of being killed, injured, detained and stranded.”

He added: “Recent events have also shown the limits of what any single actor can achieve alone. The scale and complexity of the risks facing ships and crews require even more coordinated action between the IMO, ILO, governments, shipowners, seafarer representatives, flag states, port states and industry bodies.

“So what lessons can be learned from the facts at hand? Different role players may find different lessons. Surely one prominent lesson is that the limits of the powers of all the role players have been tested. The lesson it seems is that cooperation between all relevant industry and State role players is no longer an option. It is the only option,” he said.