The curse of criminalisation

You might have heard of Captain Bekavac and Chief Officer Ali Albokhari of the Phoenician-M, two innocent seafarers slapped with 30-year sentences on baseless drug charges in Turkey. Tragically, their case echoes countless others where seafarers are abandoned to rot, forgotten by a world that moves on as wrongful criminalisation tightens its grip.

This is a call, not just for action, but for guidance too on how we can collectively recalibrate our moral compass and take the actions to push back. How can we better share the burden of criminalisation, and stem its rising tide? This cannot and should never be purely a seafarer’s problem; or a burden on the neck of partners and families left behind.

This is a festering wound on the industry’s soul. It undermines trust—how can we recruit the best and brightest when the spectre of unjust imprisonment looms? In silence though, we are losing faith that actions are taken, and that there is ever a real plan to counter this insidious, creeping curse.

Now there seems to be some mood music, but alas no conductor to ever build a crescendo. We need a focal point of action, and while every case and circumstance is different, a leadership gap leaves those who care wondering how best to act. Leadership does not mean having all the answers; it means rallying everyone to the cause, setting a direction, and fighting like hell.

The human toll—families unravelling, seafarers dying in jail—is a slow-motion disaster that demands more than whispers of outrage. This is a gut-wrenching issue, a stain that leaves lives shattered and families broken. When the system fails—when courts, politics, and profit-driven stakeholders turn their backs—what’s left is a void of justice that swallows the innocent whole.

The story of Capt Bekavac and Ali Albokhari is not an isolated tragedy; it is a symptom of a broader failure, festering for years. So, what then? What can be done when the safety net has holes so large that entire futures disappear through them?

The industry isn’t blind to this. There’s outrage —social posts, podcasts, articles such as this, and whispered frustrations, but anger without structure is just noise. There is real concern that there is an absence of a clear path forward. It is never clear what is happening, and if there is ever a need for a diplomatic silence, than that needs to be explained.

We need organisations with the reach and resources to counter systemic rot—tackling corrupt courts, indifferent governments, and owners who’d rather let a seafarer be sacrificed than risk their bottom line. The lack of a unified, actionable response is terrifying, not because no one cares; it’s because the problem’s a hydra—chop one head, and two more grow back.

These terrible truths should not be a barrier to progress. What we need—what seafarers deserve—is a system that doesn’t just react case-by-case but prevents and protects proactively. We need to be grounded in pragmatism rather than platitudes.

What could better look like? A centralised advocacy body with teeth, power, funding and the mechanisms to effect change. I have always called for seafarers to be pulled into the UN/ILO/IMO orbit formally, with seafarer numbers issued by these bodies pulling them formally into the sphere of influence and protection.

We also need to get better at public campaigns to force accountability. If we harnessed even an ounce of the power and passion of the environmental lobby, to make life better for seafarers, then we may see progress.

Coordinated campaigns can amplify individual cases into global causes. Name and shame: flag States that don’t care, port States that collude, owners who vanish, insurers who dodge. We need to be shifting public perception, pressuring governments and corporations to act. It’s not perfect, but it’s leverage. Where is our documentary maker?

Why is the Phoenician-M story not on Netflix? It should, it is worthy, and the outrage would make a difference too. This should be our Blackfish moment, the power of the narrative leading to lasting change.

There must be a proper system to offer immediate support—financial aid, counselling, and community networks to keep them afloat. Seafarers cannot be left to rot, and grassroots initiatives can step in where industry won’t/can’t, but they need funding and visibility to scale.

We are always having to learn the lessons anew every time. When the #Chennai6 campaign was rolled out, it was the families and passionate friends who had to grasp the nettle, even as they were stung at every turn to try and get justice for their loved ones.

Then when the dust settles, all that hard found victory is lost. Why aren’t people being trained and educated on how to fight back against distant injustice? Which leads us to a worrying point indeed. We are seemingly in a vacuum of leadership. Where are the leaders? Where are the organisations? Some are working quietly—but too quietly. Others are paralysed by lack of funds, or by the scale and global political, diplomatic dimensions of it all.

We need voices willing to rise and rally against a problem which is every bit as bad as piracy, and as damaging as the Houthis taking pot shots. This is a constant threat, the fear that when things go wrong a seafarer will be thrown in jail and abandoned by the mechanisms which work when a ship is alongside the port, but which evaporate upon departure.

So, who will rally the industry into a fist, not just pointed fingers? We need leadership that is visible and vocal, in boardrooms, at the UN, hammering the message: criminalisation isn’t a seafarer’s burden to bear alone; it isn’t for heartbroken partners to stare out of screens with tear-streaked faces, this is an industry shame we all fix together.

Currently there seems some growing energy around this story, which is at least a small positive. Though it is very far from unclear as to what is happening on the ground, what the legal situation is, or indeed what we as individuals can do as a collective. We need corralling, galvanising and becoming that unified voice to clamour in all cases, in all places that seafarers are not easy scapegoats.

What can we do right now? We seem to be starting small, but this can grow in volume. We must use our connections, push for roundtables at maritime conferences—force the topic onto agendas. We need to better understand the scope and scale of the issue, and we need a playbook of lessons learned which we can dig into. We need data and decision-making tools, and action-taking support.

The system is broken, no question. But frustration does not fix —action does, even messy, imperfect steps. Criminalisation may be a curse, but it is not an inevitable one and so the industry needs to stop wringing and start swinging.

So, this is a call. There are people wanting to act and waiting to support. What now?