Tricked and Trapped: Human Trafficking in the Middle East, ‎pdf 4.1 MB

subsequently accused of causing a fire on the ship, resulting in the Jordanian
authorities detaining all the seafarers on board. Nine seafarers had not been
paid for nine months, and in order to recover their lost income, they had to
wait until the court decided to sell the vessel, a process which would take
months. The ITF intervened to provide support to these seafarers.
In Lebanon, seafarers come primarily from India and Bangladesh. The
migrant seafarer community is currently quite small, amounting to 150
men between the ages of 25 and 50, as the Lebanese maritime industry has
suffered setbacks in recent years. The seafarers are recruited by Indian and
Bangladeshi agents, to whom they pay on average US$3,000: half of this is
kept by the agent and the other half passed to the owner of the ship. Their
own monthly salary varies between US$300 and US$500. Upon arrival at the
airport in Beirut, the migrant seafarers are taken to their ships and will stay
on board for the entire duration of their contract. These seafarers often have
no rest days and no overtime pay, and food is not always provided. They are
prohibited from joining the Lebanese Seamen’s Syndicate as they do not have
residency permits.
In the UAE, migrant seafarers pay agents to secure contracts with Gulf-based
companies, often for work on small boats (tugs, rig supply vessels etc.), for
which they pay on average US$2,400–3,200. 232 There are also, on average,
100 cargo ships in several ports along the Persian Gulf and at anchorage in
the Gulf of Oman, waiting to go into the Gulf. One cause of poor working
and living conditions is a practice whereby Emiratis who own companies
based in the UAE try to increase their profit margins by not paying port fees
for their ships. Eventually, the port authorities will arrest the ships, setting in
motion protracted legal battles with the shipowners that can last months or
even years. During this time, the ships’ crews are often not paid or cared for
properly. They also themselves risk arrest and detention if they try to escape
from the arrested ship. According to one report by the Mission to Seafarers:
When we contacted the Captain of the Azrak 7, the five seafarers aboard this ship
had been abandoned with no clean clothes, food, medicine, air-conditioning or
basic supplies; left on a rusting ship for seven months with no pay or supplies
and worried sick about how their families are coping without any money… The
same owner had also abandoned another vessel in Ajman Port, with a crew of two
seafarers, Nelson and Juma. These two proud seafarers were reduced to begging
from other crews in the port in order to survive. 233
Many migrant seafarers are also deceived about their living conditions on the
smaller merchant ships which carry supplies, maintenance equipment and
232
Interview with an official from the Mission to Seafarers, UAE,
2 Oct. 2012.
233
Mission to Seafarers: The Angel Appeal Project, 2012, p. 5. See http://www.
missiontoseafarers.org/for-seafarers [accessed 7 Mar. 2012].
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