Billions of people the world over rely on shipping. From food and energy to raw materials and finished products, maritime shipping moves more than 80 per cent of all goods traded globally by volume, according to the UN. Yet for a network that touches all our lives, its inner workings – tonnage, insurance premiums, freight rates and strategic chokepoints – are mostly familiar only to industry insiders.
However, beneath this specialist knowledge lies a much more immediate and comprehensible reality – the lives of the thousands of seafarers who keep the whole system running. The recent Iranian attack on the GFS Galaxy commercial vessel off the Omani coast, which forced its Indian crew to abandon ship and left one sailor missing, is a sobering reminder of that human cost.
This incident, and the many other Iranian attacks on civilian shipping during this crisis, sharply brings into view a workforce that is otherwise largely invisible, despite the fact that they underpin the global economy. This increased visibility is even taking place far from the Arabian Gulf. In Thailand, three seafarers who survived a March attack on their cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz are currently suing their employer for sending them into a war zone.
Overall, this is a paradoxical situation. Seafarers are essential, yet maritime law and frameworks seem unable to cope with how the conflict in Gulf waters affects their lives. If legal safeguards cannot be enforced, then thousands of maritime workers are left at risk. What is a difficult, demanding and isolating profession at the best of times becomes acutely dangerous when geopolitical tensions spill over into violent attacks.
For the estimated 20,000 men currently stuck in the Arabian Gulf, insistent declarations that Hormuz passage is open are of little reassurance. If routes are not safe, then they are not truly open. Reports of food shortages, psychological strain and prolonged confinement at sea are the consequences of a legal and regulatory system that seems ill-prepared for this era of hybrid threats.
When it comes to shipping and the US-Iran war, the focus needs to include the very real human toll on seafarers. As crises erupt, attention quickly coalesces around energy supplies and trade. These are important but the seafarers themselves often enter the conversation only after tragedy. As insurance mechanisms are adjusted and shipping routes are recalculated, so too must the rules governing thousands of workers’ lives come under scrutiny.
When commercial vessels become targets without formal declarations of war, responsibility for seafarers’ protection is diffused and accountability limited. So far, global trade has shown that it can continue despite the strain, but this should not come at the expense of those who sustain it. Their safety is indispensable to the resilience and legitimacy of global commerce and their employers must recognise that. A system that depends on seafarers cannot afford to treat them as an afterthought.
Read more: One dead and eight injured as Iran hits two UAE supertankers in Hormuz
