Highlighting the scale of seafarer criminalisation: senior officers are most at risk of criminalisation, in 63% of cases the Master was the one imprisoned

Highlighting the scale of seafarer criminalisation
January 15, 2025 https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/crewing/highlighting-the-scale-of-seaf...

Intermanager is collating cases of seafarer criminalisation in an effort to draw greater attention to the issue.

The criminalisation of seafarers in cases such as accidents and oil spills are a longstanding problem, as well as other issues such as drugs being found on board, and ship manager trade association Intermanager says it is increasingly concerned at the harsh treatment of crews in some parts of the world.

Intermanager is in the early stages of compiling figures but already knows of 118 cases of seafarer criminalisation and says it suspects there are many more. The plan is to share statistics with the IMO and urges shipping organisations, maritime professionals and seafarers to share cases they know of.

Intermanager Secretary General, Captain Kuba Szymanski, explained: “There is a concern within the shipping industry that seafarers are being unfairly detained when authorities find something wrong with their ship, often when drugs are found onboard but also in other circumstances. Most frequently senior officers are detained, although the whole crew can be, and held without charge for long periods of time and often without any proper legal representation or assistance.

“There is growing recognition across the shipping industry that this situation needs to be addressed, including at the International Maritime Organization. InterManager, as part of the Human Element Industry Group and as an IMO NGO, has stepped up to collect meaningful and useful data that can be used to inform discussions on this issue. Let’s see what the scale of the problem is.”

Based on the limited data the association has compiled so far senior officers are most at risk of criminalisation and in 63% of cases the Master was the one imprisoned. Tanker crews see the highest number of incidents accounting for 29% of cases.

Based on the current data between 1989 and 2024 the number of cases peaked in 2023 with 23, and a further 17 last year. Cases were most frequent in Asia, with a significant number occurring in both Europe and the Americas.