Seafarers held captive as a result of an act of piracy or armed robbery against ships will continue to receive their wages and entitlements during their period of captivity under amendments to the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended (MLC, 2006) adopted by the Special Tripartite Committee of the MLC, 2006 at a recent meeting at the ILO in Geneva.
The amendments will be submitted for approval at the 28 May-8 June, 2018 International Labour Conference .
“Tripartism and social dialogue played a key role in the process of adoption of the amendments,” said Corinne Vargha, Director of the ILO’s International Labour Department. “These amendments cover concrete needs of seafarers that were not addressed until now by the Convention,” she added.
World Maritime University President Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, a former ILO official, also welcomed the amendments. “These amendments have an important significance in terms of the legal certainty that they provide and also the protection they extend to seafarers and their families when faced with the most horrid of crimes in today’s modern world,” she said.
