There’s 11,086 kilometres between São Sebastião, Brazil and the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. It’s those eleven thousand kilometres ITF Inspector Renialdo de Freitas has been working to get 16 Ukrainian seafarers back across, to their homes and families.
As the Covid-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions put in place to attempt containment drag on, around 200,000 merchant seafarers are trapped aboard ships in violation of international law.
Four months without pay and 48 hours without food, 47 seafarers off the coast of the UK are desperate to get home to their families.
Today is the ‘Day of the Seafarer’ a day when we should celebrate seafarers, but this year, as world’s seafarers are let down by governments there is little to celebrate
The ITF and the Joint Negotiating Group, along with the International Chamber of Shipping have worked tirelessly since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic on finding solutions to the issue of crew changes.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and its affiliated seafarers’ unions will now assist hundreds of thousands of seafarers to exercise their right to stop working, leave ships, and return home.
