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SHIP breaking refers to the process of either partially or completely dismantling ships that are at the end of their product life cycle. The recovered components of the used vessels are things such as steel and scrap iron for recycling or reuse. Since ship breaking is a labour-intensive sector, it is quite costly for developed nations due to the high cost of domestic labour. This is why countries in the Indian subcontinent, such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have flourished in this industry.

Looking at the beginning of our ship breaking history, during the Liberation War in 1971, bombing caused the ruination of a ship called ‘Al Abbas’ from Pakistan, which was then later reclaimed and carried on to the Fauzdarhat sea shore. There, Karnafully Metal Works Limited bought it as scrap in the year 1974, which then led to the introduction of the infamous commercial ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh. It is estimated that the government of Bangladesh collects around Tk 10 billion from the ship breaking industry in the form of revenue via yard taxes, import duties and other types of levies. In addition to this, around 50,000 people in Bangladesh are directly employed in the ship-breaking industry, with another 100,000 people indirectly dependent on it.

But despite being a major industry, the working conditions for labourers in Bangladesh are appalling and completely deplorable due to the continuous negligence of the corporate giants that control this massive enterprise. The concept of ‘value chain responsibility’ for ship owners refers to the corporate ship owners’ duties to safeguard the environment and to guarantee the socioeconomic and workplace safety of their workforce. This responsibility, however, has been largely ignored.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment set minimum wage rules for ship-breaking workers, ranging from Tk 615 to Tk 1,225 per day, which were supposed to be implemented in 2018. However, the workers employed in this sector still receive only around $2 or Tk 240 per day, even after working in this hazardous trade for 12 years. Most of the time, they cannot even claim higher wages, as they are not issued appointment letters, and there is no formal contract between the employer and the employee in most of the yards.

According to the Bangladesh Labour Act, regular working hours are limited to 8 hours daily as per Section 100, and 48 hours weekly according to Section 102, though an adult worker can work in an establishment for a maximum of 10 hours a day. However, in practice, workers are often forced to work more than 13 to 14 hours a day without receiving any overtime pay. Children are employed in this hazardous sector due to the absence of formal contracts and proper regulatory enforcement. Yet, in Bangladesh, child employment is outright forbidden by Section 42 of the Labour Act.

Bangladesh is the world’s leading location for ship breaking, accounting for around 47.20 per cent of all vessels broken. But Bangladesh lags far behind in terms of safety. Data collected by Greenpeace and the International Federation for Human Rights indicates that 1,000 individuals have perished in Sitakunda as a result of toxic waste exposure or accidents. Every year, many individuals fall ill from breathing in harmful vapours in the scrap yards. Toxic elements used by the shipbuilding and repair sectors — including lead, polychlorinated biphenyls, and cadmium—pose severe health risks. These workplaces hardly ever provide protective glasses, clothing, gloves, or other safety precautions. Even when there’s a clear threat to life, ship-breaking authorities have failed to halt work until the danger is addressed.

Asbestos, a known carcinogen, is frequently exposed to soil and water, putting workers at heightened risk. Toxins from shipyards often leach into waterways, altering water quality. The mixture of sand, oil, and water is dumped into the ocean before ships are dismantled, while airborne asbestos fibres endanger both the local population and workers. Despite the high risk of illness associated with this work, healthcare services remain substandard. Furthermore, it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of deaths or injuries, as labour registers are not even maintained. The primary causes of accidents and fatalities in the sector include poor safety systems, hazardous working conditions, the use of traditional ship-cutting methods, the absence of appropriate emergency responses, and a lack of preventive measures.

The safety concerns for labourers in ship-breaking sites have even been acknowledged in court verdicts. In the case of ‘Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association vs Bangladesh’, the court held that the shipbreaking industry exposes workers to severe physical dangers, including toxic chemical exposure, risk of cancer, injuries from falling metal, deaths from explosions and harmful noise pollution — all worsened by poor living and working conditions. In another case, a Bangladeshi shipbreaker named Md Khalil Mollah died after falling while dismantling a vessel at an unsafe yard in Chattogram. His wife, Hamida Begum, later filed a lawsuit against the UK-based company that sold the ship, arguing that the company was aware of the dangerous conditions it was sending the vessel into. Many workers like Khalil Mollah have suffered the same fate due to the negligence and inadequate safety measures implemented by vessel owners and shipyard operators.

The High Court of Bangladesh issued an order on May 17, 2009 that forbids the importing of vessels by ship breaking yards unless they have acquired an Environmental Clearance Certificate from the Department of Environment. However, there is no clarity as to whether this certificate is for the yard or the ship itself. The Ministry of Environment and Forests issued the ‘Hazardous Waste and Management of Hazardous Waste in Ship Breaking–2011’ regulation. Under this rule, yard owners are required to acquire a no objection certificate, by submitting a stock catalogue that lists all the hazardous materials onboard before importing the ship, along with the environment clearance certificate of the yard in question. Following numerous accidents, mishaps and deaths, legal pressure from environmental groups led to a temporary halt in all shipbreaking operations in 2010.

In 2004, the International Labour Organization issued safety guidelines for shipbreaking in Asia and Turkey, but these are largely ignored by the authorities and are rarely enforced. The Hong Kong International Convention, established in 2009, aims to ensure safe and sustainable ship recycling. However, its impact in Bangladesh remains negligible due to the absence of a Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility, which is both costly and complex to establish. The convention also requires ship recycling facilities to be affiliated with recognised organisations, a standard that Bangladesh continues to struggle to meet. Given that the risks fall squarely on Bangladeshi workers and the environment, the main profit-generating corporations in this industry have a moral and legal obligation to invest in Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility infrastructure within the country.

Apart from these, several other international treaties and standards exist to regulate shipbreaking practices — such as the Basel Convention, the Marine Pollution Convention, and the International Organization for Standardization. Yet none of these are implemented effectively in Bangladesh. Despite the existence of domestic legislation, global guidelines, treaties and conventions, enforcement remains weak due to the overwhelming influence of multinational shipping corporations. Consequently, workers continue to be injured and die from hazardous working conditions and exposure to harmful substances.

The government must intervene decisively and compel these corporations to rectify the dangerous gaps in their operations. If not, this will not merely be a failure of legal enforcement, but a glaring moral failure — one that allows the exploitation of cheap labour to continue fuelling an industry built on human suffering and environmental degradation.

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Wasit Zawad Ismam and Raidah Khan Rakhma are law students and undergraduate teaching assistants at the North South University.