Scrapped: the deadly business of dismantling ships in Bangladesh

[Music] some of the hardest places to get to in there a public of Bangladesh are the ship breaking yards of Chittagong ships from all over the world are sent here to die but not just ships local workers die too or suffers severe injuries metal cutter Schumann agreed to tell us his story but things didn't go quite according to plan he's fired he fight he's fired he's fired from his job whom should one fight today my mom's get over it he has no job in the sea breaking yard from tomorrow [Music] Chittagong is the second largest city in Bangladesh officially the population is 10 million but unofficially it's a lot more so if you lose your job here there are hundreds maybe thousands of people ready to take your place Bangladesh has no metal resources so the economy is dependent on the ship breaking industry labor is cheap and plentiful the average wage is $3 a day so with record ship reclamation volumes it's an extremely profitable business [Music] Mohammed Alicia him says that for more than 10 years he's fought for and defended workers rights in Bangladeshi ship breaking yards I try to help these workers I try to help them to get their compensation I try to ensure their safety and I also try to help them when they are in so much trouble from their owners so welcome to the ship breaking zone there's no one I start from here so whatever you will see you know side of this area that's those are all from ships you will see scrap DBC furniture wood kitchen staff engines boiler tube barrels they don't throw away anything they sell everything they get money from every waste of the ship the ship breakers who are dominating the business of Bangladesh there's only 22 families who are dominating this business and this ship breaking yard owners they are the richest person in the country most of the people who are working in the ship breaking yard most of the polar from the northern part of the country which is the poorest part of the country and other you know you can say 25 to 30 percent of the worker there from the Chittagong region the ship taking air owners they are taking opportunity of the property of those people they are poor okay use them as animal if one dies who cares we will replace him with another worker that is how shipbreaking workers are treated no medical facilities no compensation money whose Rock daily duties on us okay I'm talkin attack at night another winter means an uncoded uno Don oppose the utility in 2013 according to our information 13 worker died in 2014 told worker died so these are according to our information but there may be some other death which we are not getting because ship breaking yards are closed if anybody died they can throw that good on the sea [Music] the ship breaking yard is kind of prohibited for any media or any researchers or any activists like us there is a formal declaration by the ship breaker Association that people like us will not get any entry into the ship breaking yard and they take activists like us as an enemy of them but they can be decision sound enough huh no hello any managers wait number one we hear not hello I can I tell managers to call the owner the same definitely just ask them not nothing to do just as the flower to collect in the divisional opening observe the camera I mean Judy apogee will come the kintama coconut I carry any weight the general is change I'm moving so I took a boy choreographies are more dangerous more dangerous for him amara Dharma Jeremy Janina Varma amar amar metallic donna dye genomic is du Vallon I am equipped I don't wanna say Tommy Johnny sridham is fifteen or sixteen years old he works at a shipyard as an assistant metal cutter but when there are no ships to strip down he takes any work he can even though Bangladeshi law prohibits child labor but Sagara ferrocene not a life Sagara de wire do I you know got told my dear here for Salah she Alateen by the one and by bi d Castillo Jelena myself Baumer a year some salvar is colored for dinner is color for our structure is done got again my window sorry they do custodian para what America's filler Giller Tarver Satnam instead now hire boota boota lorena official or his neurologist algae on Alejandra Gurion IANA John's daughter has dinner Kolya cube and then Farah dieters on believer has Nevada hi Vicky they're on Suliban de Bergerac to solve another superb andouille taco no hassle me a TV damn River which was the CEO Donato judicial nationalism on the key cuchara way he took this one other key km level with Donna Quinta [Music] we made several attempts to arrange a meeting with shipyard managers or owners many simply refused while others said they would not be willing to talk in front of our camera so we have no choice but to use a hidden camera to film the head of one company involved in the industry we asked if we could film in the yard but what sounds down but the PHP family seems to have short memories when it comes to injuries no pagers maybe they have some cars maybe some bruises maybe some they have hearted soul the Lord bagged something [Music] Shahin coordinator of a human rights organization called shipbreaking platform has very different information he introduced us to workers who were willing to talk about what's really going on in the shipyards of Chittagong [Music] is to promote artery has curry in the dojo going to toronto guru a little more acting with a little ghosts do not eat eternal power can celui should be with Ricans are say only good life duration was lucky in this Shamar Emporium are over there are no the leader of anyone Tito acting battalion monarch or a kind of familiar with it we should do really the exam for the heart I mean I've got under the sandwiches Tom larkey one more for the team Appa who teach tttt KTBC katie they will have morning Boston with Daenerys a stable at the camera Hamilton legacy it is our poor sick of the Caligula to gratuity see you show Mohammed observe safety topology soon I yeah cutting edge so mayor you can party Marty okay I'm Lucy Dianna former activist hermanos good golly is yellow while you're sick into kono casket of rectitude Ricardo de poner tango Lana Hong Kong actually is it wasn't land yes she'll know in America there was only one way we might have an opportunity to get close enough to the shipyards to film fishermen as well as laborers live along the shore we were able to hire a boat after explaining to its owner that we wanted to approach the ship's from the bay there are no boundaries out in the sea to mark where each shipyard ends so from here we can get some idea of the scale of the business up to 200 ships sail into the bay each year this is the closest we can get to the ship's security make sure no one films how the ships are cut down and what happens next or how the workers get injured we're approaching carefully now and as soon as we hear the alarm we'll have to get out of here as quickly as we possibly can we began to suspect that Shaheen wasn't quite as straightforward as he would have liked us to believe when after our futile attempts to get into a ship breaking yard he came to see us in our hotel in Chittagong and told us he'd managed to arrange a visit but only for a few minutes and for a not inconsiderable amount of money by local standards without that we had no chance of achieving our goal we still don't know exactly what happened to the money or who benefited from it but we did decide to take a chance try to find out what doing business in Chittagong really means the person in glasses is going to lead us into the ship breaking yard he also warned us that we would only be able to film if we used very small cameras so yes there is no proper figure of the of the ship breaking workers in this business because the owners didn't maintain any proper register and the workers were working there they don't have any ID card there are only 80 shipbreaking years which are active if all this year have ships at a time it comes 16,000 workers they are only buying the tonnage of scrap idols if it's a 5,000 on its ship they are only paying money for the 5000 tonnage of item carton is $500 right now but the means they are selling those scrap Islands those meals are owned by them they're not selling it they are just shifting the steps from here to the mills they can be never in a loss that was all we could film in the three minutes we've paid for you might assume that some responsibility for what happens in Chittagong shipyards rest with local government but it's heavily involved in the ship breaking business - I have the silicon industry and that this is my organization there are two thousand one car work they're safe now to work in this place you see who is the safe now save now this it became businesses under control can we maybe visit your desire mmm I will be very happy if you want or if you ask my question regarding this the city corporation I will be very happy once again we're hurrying to meet Sherman the metal cutter he talked about his work in great detail but we need to find video images to prove it we thought he might take a small camera with him next time he went to the shipyard but we never expected things to turn out as they did he's fired he fight he's fired he's fired from his job you need a kitchen assist he's agnostic to Akane Erica studio to solitary economy added to teach the cinematography vandalism vinamra Charlton Oval on Tarawa detail parasurama origin or October when I came alone [Music] Shyne called us that same evening to tell us that being yet another accident at one of the shipyards this is the only one public hospital we have here in the whole whole Chittagong division where the poor people can get treatment in a cheaper way but the problem is that it's very overloaded because the facilities it's made hundred years back never renovated demand is growing but the facilities were have not expanded in that way you saw the workers are lying on the on the bar Enders because there is no standard there is no enough seat for them he fall from very height of a ship and as the way he fall he was it's a kind of miracle to be survived [Music] vanilla etymology commissioning of a silver bullet [Music] so if a few minutes ago we became snail that another accident happened here and we saw this guy when I want to know what happened - come on let's go through me right now whatever because I even tried to go him in the waist okay yeah I can call him [Music] what time it was yes I think it's switched off and who was that guy who allowed us to enter the shipyard once he was one of the security guy because I have to work on this issue I have to save this worker so that's why I also need to have some sources like him who can you know help me for watching what's happening in the ship breaking yards sh'mon vanished for three days I never answered his phone but then just a few minutes ago we did manage to reach him now we're on our way to see him to find out what actually happened and whether he really was fired we asked a translator to come with us to our meeting someone who'd never met Shaheen before we wanted to know the truth including shaheen's role in the story people on cancer their honey's alimony acceptor for in windy and warm for a Nagini anything Senegal at a year for our story and I our attention in anything the dirty just in the dirt is an over inaudible loot or money I told Rosco who said there is activity [Music] it's this famous English Jurgen Etta boosters were pious Lee is go shooters what liberal America to me really roshaniya token is night at the Nevis vajna cuz this elite up to leadership at up ship breaking business unit Canada is calculated severe Cisco suder's with vitamin E ously an initially delayed go students were to genital needle near to prop sensor I need to monitor studious Loni attorney compensation adult initially we update rubble Jim Doheny at a quieter spot when Nick Cooney at the protest to UT the next day Shahin coders and offered to meet in his office we soon discovered that she was there to some article based on my information on behalf of anjou shipbreaking platform we also try to create pressure on the owners and on the policy makers EU has a program that we have to submit some proposal to them and based on our proposal they give us some grants yearly I mean whatever I get yearly that is only 2500 euro per year to work for this issue we will try to help him we are giving some more time to the yacht owners so if they still keep impending then we will see we will go to the court and for his livelihood we will arrange something different [Music] [Music] we learned that Sherman wasn't the only one who had suffered after talking to foreign journalists and Shaheen had known about the risk it's also haven't happened several times at least I can show you four or five workers friend like this who law who loses their job because of sharing the information to the media and to us working out who's playing what game here is the challenge the city mayor owns a shipyard himself human rights activist Shaheen has secret connections with the people behind the illegal ways to film the ship reclamation process but as long as there's a ship's graveyard in Chittagong there will always be rich profits for the taking despite the human cost [Music]

Channel: RT Documentary

Views: 3,753,051

Rating: 4.5753617 out of 5

Keywords: RT, Russia Today, RT Documentary, RT Doc, RT docs, documentary, Chittagong (City/Town/Village), Bangladesh (Country), chittagong shipbreaking factory, shipbreaking yards

Id: a4cVGWTzKo8

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/uniqueusor]

I bitch and complain as much as the next person, but I am pretty thankful to have been born where I was.

[u/Funny_Horsie]

Humanitarian issues aside, the sheer scale of the job is pretty daunting. Even sailing around the segmented parts of the ships being worked on was eerie.

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmtFN1bfZ8 this is a good video to

[u/firstuser007]

Scrap market