The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has expressed its displeasure over the rising rate of seafarer abandonment and the negative implications for the maritime industry and global economic growth.
The Federation in its latest report indicated that so far in 2025, the ugly situation showed an increase of a third over the recorded numbers of abandonment in 2024, demanding accountability in order ensure adequate protection of seafarers .
Specifically, the ITF charged international regulators, port states, and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to take urgent action to reverse the disturbing situation, describing the incident as often involving seafarers being denied pay for two months or more, being left stranded, or left without food or medical support, or often a combination of these circumstances.
According to the report, over 2,280 seafarers have been abandoned aboard 222 vessels, including $13.1 million in unpaid wages this year alone compared to 172 reported cases involving 1,838 seafarers and $11.5 million in unpaid wages in 2024.
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Commenting on the undesirable phenomenon, ITF’s Inspectorate Coordinator, Steve Trowsdale, said: “Every single case of abandonment is a disgrace. It’s an intentional abuse of human rights, and the failure to end abandonment exposes a systemic problem in the maritime industry.
“We are seeing a pattern of abuse that cannot be ignored and that must be confronted. In recent years, the Gulf region, and the UAE in particular, has seen a huge increase in seafarer abandonment cases. Both there and in Europe, much more must be done to crack down on the rogue shipowners who need to know there’ll be consequences”, Trowsdale added.
The labour organization revealed that 37% of the abandonment cases in 2025 occurred in the Arab World followed by 34% in Europe, the majority being in Turkey, adding that those rates are more than double the share of Asia Pacific, the next highest region.
It listed some of the causes of seafarers’ abandonment as including lack enforcement of the rules, monitoring of the registry, the absence of adequate insurance for vessels, and shipowners refusing to accept responsibility for crew welfare and a lack of support from the sponsor countries, adding that the so-called “Flags of Convenience” system is central to the rise in abandonment cases.
Specifically, the ITF reported that it received 26 reports for vessels registered in St. Kitts & Nevis, another 26 for vessels registered in Tanzania, and 18 for Comoros, with the three jurisdictions dominating the abandonment lists, noting that three-quarters of the reports came from the countries it labels as flags of convenience.
Meanwhile, some member-states of the IMO had earlier expressed concerns about the lax enforcement in some registries. For instance, the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission announced earlier this year it was launching an investigation into the practices of registry authorities, and raised concerns about the unfavourable business conditions that the flags of convenience create and the potential impact on U.S. trade.
As expected, these flags have also become an increasing concern for their support of the shadow fleet of aging tankers.
To address the challenge and the fears of a major environmental disaster from the poorly supervised vessels, the EU had launched a programme of insurance checks for vessels sailing in Northern Europe and into the Baltic region
