World’s seafarers’ and dockers’ unions demand immediate end to seafarer humanitarian crisis - call for governments to confront the Flag of Convenience system that enables exploitation and fails to protect seafarers.
The world's maritime unions came together at the ITF’s Fair Practices Committee in an unprecedented show of solidarity to demand an immediate end to the humanitarian crisis faced by seafarers in the Persian Gulf.
The unions reiterate the ITF's call for a permanent ceasefire and full de-escalation by all parties, and the urgent initiation of diplomacy grounded in international law. They condemn the illegal bombing carried out by Israel and the United States, and the subsequent retaliatory attacks launched by Iran across the region, in violation of the most fundamental rule of international law: the prohibition on the use of force.
More than 20,000 seafarers remain trapped inside the Strait of Hormuz, facing fear and uncertainty, cut off from their families, and in many cases running short of food, water and fuel.
Seafarers have been killed and injured in attacks in a war zone they did not choose to enter. They are workers largely from the Global South, far from home, carrying the world's cargo on behalf of all our economies and communities. Yet they are being used as pawns in geopolitical conflict.
The mental health of seafarers in the region is under immense strain, and employers – including our partners in the International Bargaining Forum – continue to deny enhanced protections for psychosocial harm, including suicide in the most desperate cases.
The ITF and our affiliated unions have been fighting the Flag of Convenience (FOC) system for decades. We have named it, campaigned against it, documented its human consequences, and demanded that governments act to end it.
We are naming it again now: the FOC system is the rotten apple at the core of seafarer exploitation. Within this crisis, it is behind many of the abuses our inspectors and support teams are dealing with daily. It is the enabling architecture behind the shadow fleet, behind record-breaking abandonment figures and behind the worst abuses of the Covid-19 crew change crisis. And governments have chosen, year after year, crisis after crisis, to fail seafarers.
The system is broken, we have the evidence
Since the US/Israel-Iran war began, the ITF has received over 2,200 requests for assistance from seafarers in the region. Half relate to unpaid wages and contractual entitlements; around 20% are requests for repatriation; and roughly 10% concern vessels running critically low on essential fuel and supplies. To date, the ITF has assisted in the repatriation of more than 540 seafarers.
This crisis did not arrive without warning. The ITF’s data showed that 2025 was again the worst year on record for seafarer abandonment – with 6,223 seafarers abandoned, a 32% increase on the previous year and the sixth consecutive year of rising cases. A crisis that was already happening.
Under the FOC system, a shipowner can register a vessel in a state with no genuine link to its ownership, management or operation – in contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In exchange for registration fees, flag states offer minimal scrutiny and near-zero accountability. They are selling enforcement-free sovereignty.
The simple fact that a shipowner can buy a flag, exploit a crew, abandon a vessel, and register under a different flag tomorrow – legally – tells you everything about the parlous state of maritime governance.
Flag states and unscrupulous employers have failed seafarers repeatedly, without consequence. The worst FOC flags have shown a complete derogation of responsibility towards their crews. That is a choice, a choice to collect registration fees over enforcing and protecting seafarers' rights.
Our demands
Mandatory beneficial ownership transparency for all vessel registrations.
Government investigations into the FOC system.
Enforcement of the ‘genuine link’ – flag states that cannot demonstrate this link should lose the right to issue flags.
Full accountability for flag states that repeatedly breach their Maritime Labour Convention obligations.
A guaranteed right to repatriation, wage recovery, and legal redress for abandoned seafarers – with flag states held financially liable where shipowners cannot be found.
The FOC system was built and expanded through the active choices of governments. It can be reformed through different choices. Seafarer abandonment, false flags, shadow fleets, sanctions evasion – these are interconnected outcomes of a failing system. They will keep repeating until the system is reformed.
As representatives of the world’s seafarers’ and dockers’ unions, we say this: We have had enough. Enough exploitation. Enough abandonment. Enough of a system that treats the people who keep the global economy moving as expendable.
The world is watching the Strait of Hormuz. The international community must decide whether it is serious about protecting the workers who keep global trade moving.
Notes to Editor
- The ITF Fair Practices Committee is a joint committee of ITF seafarers' and dockers' section affiliated unions, which oversee the ITF campaign against Flags of Convenience.
Image credit: REUTERS
