Shipbreaking in Bangladesh

General Assembly of NGO platform on Shipbreaking

The Annual General Assembly of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking was held from 19 – 20 May 2008 at Rue de la Linière 11, 1060 Brussels, Belgium. Representation from all the member organizations, made the AGM very much successful and effective. On behalf of YPSA Mr. Muhammed Ali Shahin joined in the AGM of the Platform.

The AGM was also represented by "Jim Puckett" from Basel Ban (USA), "Annie Thébaud-Mony" from Ban Asbestos(France), "Isabelle Brachet" from FIDH, "T Mohan" from Indian Platform (India), "Eelco Leemans", "Grazia Cioci" from Platform, "Gopal Krishna" from Indian Platform (India), "Helen Perivier" from Greenpeace, "Marietta Harjono" Greenpeace Netherlands, "Ingvild Jenssen" from Platform, "Konrad Pütz", Erdem Vardar from Platform (Turkey), Syeda Rezwana Hasan from BELA (Bangladesh), Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed from BILS (Bangladesh)and others.

Presentations:
In the first day of the AGM Ms. Ingvild Jenssen, Coordinator of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, a short overview of the shipbreaking situation and the work of the Platform shortly updated on the negotiations for a new convention at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Mr. Jim Puckett gave a short background introduction to the Basel Convention and its relevance to end-of-life vessels.

Ms. Madalina Caprusu from The European Commission’s Environment Directorate General talked about the developments at the European level, including the responses to the Commission’s Green Paper on Better Ship Dismantling and the way forward.

In the National contexts of Bangladesh Shahin Mohammed Ali gave a presentation where he described all the perspective related with the shipbreaking issue. It was very important for all to understand the situation in Bangladesh as the biggest shipbreaking country. Gopal Krishna from India and Erdem Vardar from Turkey explained about the situation in India and Turkey.

General discussions:
The members also discussed about Platform’s Administrative issues, Strategy/work plan, Identifying objectives and targets. A discussion about some upcoming reports of the platform also held in the AGM like: Alang yards (India), Chittagong Child Labour report (Bangladesh), Aliaga yards (Turkey), Norwegian export case (Norway):

Focal persons:
For activating the members of the platform in different countries, focal persons are fixed for different areas and places like-

 International: Ingvild Jenssen
 EU: Grazia Gioci
 India: Gopal Krishna
 Bangladesh: Muhammed Ali Shahin
 Turkey: Erdem Vardar

It’s a pleasure that Muhammed Ali Shahin is accepted as a Focal person of the platform in Bangladesh. It’s also decided to arrange the next AGM in Bangladesh.

The Film Ironeaters (Lohakhor) by Shaheen Dill-Riaz also screened in the AGM which portrayed the situation of the workers in Chittagong, Bangladesh.