HUMAN ELEMENT
Essential contributor to sustainable shipping
THE GOVERNING council and members of the Women in Maritime Association Caribbean (WIMAC) join the rest of the global maritime community to celebrate World Maritime Day 2021 on the theme ‘Seafarers: At the core of shipping’s future’.
As of this year, the IMO has asked all of us celebrating to light up buildings, bridges, maritime ports, ships, monuments, museums, and other spaces. This ‘lighting up’ is particularly symbolic in these times. From 2020 to the present, men and women seafarers have faced challenges unprecedented in modern seafaring annals. Global focus dovetailed on the human element in shipping in the light of the pandemic. The human element refers to “a complex multidimensional issue that affects maritime safety, security, and marine environmental protection involving the entire spectrum of human activities performed by ships’ crews, shore-based management, regulatory bodies and others”. (IMO, 1997)
On August 11, 2020, WIMAC organised a webinar to focus on the human element as essential contributors to sustainable shipping in the Caribbean region, mindful of the overwhelming focus on the duty of care to seafarers and transport workers. This event was part of our series ‘Caribbean Shipping Post COVID-19: A Roadmap To Recovery & Sustainability’. We heard from various speakers who provided IMO and ILO perspectives, a female captain from Celebrity Cruises, and owners’ representatives and shipping agents representing cruise and container/cargo lines. This exchange reinforced the importance of upholding and monitoring the legislative agenda on the duty of care to seafarers. While we understood the collective distress in the light of stretched and failed systems, we also heard individual stories of women and men. These brought sharper context to how the pandemic has impacted seafarers, their families, countries and economies. The role of ship agents, ports and other shore-based services in these times has been instrumental. Governments in the Caribbean also took proactive steps to support seafarers on several cruise ships stranded after the domino effect of closed borders due to the COVID19 pandemic.
Cultures and popular literature have always turned to the sea as a source of fantasy and escape. The fantasy of a life at sea ignites our imaginations when our daily routine seems too dull to bear. However, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the reality of the lives of women and men seafarers to many people who never saw beyond the fantasy: the precise certification structures, crewing, contractual and other work-related ramifications, and hierarchies and conditions of life onboard vessels. The exposure peeled away the layers – from ordinary men and women seafarers up the ranks of captains and chief engineers.
The symbolism of lighting up buildings and landmarks for World Maritime Day 2021 is poignant in this regard. Over the decades, lighthouses have served seafarers as aids to navigation to ensure their safety. Advanced navigation technology/electronic aids now feature more prominently in 21st-century maritime safety. However, with what has transpired, and all we better understand about seafarers’ issues, we pledge to continue our efforts for the growth of the sector, and to that end, for the fullest participation of women who make up the essential human element, on shore and on vessels. In so doing, WIMAC supports the global push for gender equality and women’s empowerment towards overall sustainable development.