Anti-slavery campaigns are the focus of state and Australia wide groups of Religious (ACRATH - Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans). They document local cases of restaurant and prostitution based slavery leading to the prosecution of captor-operators. Many victims are foreign students. Importantly, Religious also work at the grass-roots to help people freed create a new path in life.
Slavery is an international trade. A major offender is owners of ships working under ‘flags of convenience’ (http://www.ejfoundation.org/page682.html). Owners register their merchant ships in a sovereign state different from their own where maritime laws are lax or not enforced. They aim to reduce their operating costs for labour and maintenance by avoiding wage and safety regulations in the owner’s country.
The term, 'flag of convenience’ has been widely used since the 1950s. It began in the 1920s when US ship owners began registering their ships in Panama. By 1968 ship registrations in Panama passed those of the United Kingdom which until then held the world’s largest register.
As of 2010, more than half the world’s merchant ships sail under a ‘flag of convenience’ with an estimated 600,000 mariners on board. Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands account for about 40% of the world fleet registered this way. The Liberian registry was the brainchild of Edward Stettinius, US Secretary of State during WWII. Now some countries without a coastline have registers, such as Manchuria and Bolivia.
In 2009 ships of 13 flags of convenience countries out of 32 were found to have sub-standard regulations under international agreements. These are mostly Mediterranean, Caribbean and Pacific Island countries but these account for smaller tonnages than the big three.
While it is not the focus of the video clip, ships working under flags of convenience are environmentally destructive of the ocean ecology - over fishing, taking threatened species, depleting breeding stocks. This was one reason for the initial rise in piracy off the Somali coast as local fisher people lost their livelihoods. Flag of convenience ships are responsible for many major oil spills such as the Liberian-flagged MV Amoco Cadiz.
In logic not dissimilar to the present day Australian mining and oil industries, ship owners claim that the flags of convenience gives them flexibility in choosing workers from an international pool. That ship owners can impose sub-standard living conditions and lower wages make the proposition even more attractive. Woodside oil in Western Australia is being investigated for paying $3 an hour to Philippine employees working 84 hour weeks.
Gangster connections play a large part in the practice of registering under a flag of convenience and many gangsters operate from boardrooms in wealthy countries. The first such flag vessel registered in Panama ran grog from Canada to the USA. A flag of convenience system puts ships and owners outside the law, legally anonymous and difficult to prosecute. They hide behind shelf companies spread across many jurisdictions. Like many oil/mining companies, they hide their profits the same way (2003 OECD Report).
As part of gospel care the Church has Stella Maris Seafarers Centres (Apostleship of The Sea) around the world to welcome and help seafarers in trouble. But just as Jesus confronted the religious systems in his day, believers and people of good will are challenged to confront today’s ‘flag of convenience’ legal system as a system of slavery. We need to spread the word about this evil and register our concern to our local Federal member and to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (John McEwen Cres. BARTON ACT 0221). Locally, laws of the sea can be better enforced - inspect every ‘flag’ ship on their Australian port visits, and seize the cargo of ships servicing unregulated mother-ships. Internationally, stronger punitive measures are called for.
There is hope for change. In 1982 Honduras shut down its open flag registry since it enabled ‘illegal traffic of all kinds’. In 2003 the North Korean owned and Tuvalu flag registered ship Pong-su was seized by Australian authorities for smuggling drugs. This is the gospel of life and Easter liberation from slavery.
Fr Charles Rue worked in Korea and Jamaica. He works in the areas of justice, peace and ecology.
Related links
- Read more JPIC Articles on Migration of Peoples
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