The Parallel Life

                   There is the Constitution
                    and there is Parliament
                       and it is rumored
                      that every citizen
                     is equal before Law.

          - Cecil Rajendra, More Equal Than Others

 

  They sail the seven seas and one day they come to their last post of call. It is place where man and machine unites. Their tales become one… of hardship, of sorrow, of loss and realization… and finding the real meaning of life, the parallel life.

   The ships are torn into pieces, the colossal structures of their beings shredded to nothingness; in the process of vanishing they affect the life around them. The men who like army of ants bring apart the mammoth vessels, also losses much in the process, some loss fingers, some legs and some even losses their life. But this does not mark the end of their life; sometime its where begins starts because they are like, the vessels they masters, they can break, but not bend. They are fighters; they survive any massive blow the yard gives them on their own.

   While the country’s law keep silent about ship-breaking yard labour rights law. Everyday someone new comes and some leaves branded by the job. It is a never-ending tales of living in dignity without pride.

Text By: Momena Jalil

The Parallel Life

  • UMA, a ship formerly owned by the Norwegian company Odfjell, now is in its last destination...a ship breaking yard in Bangladesh, awaiting its turn. “The Human Cost of Breaking Ships”, a report published in December 2008 said at least 1,000 workers died in the last 20 years in Bangladesh’s ship-breaking yards. The figures do not include the deaths from diseases caused by toxic fumes and materials workers are exposed to all the time. It seems like nobody really cares: ship breaking workers are easily replaceable to the yard owners: if one is lost they know another 10 is waiting to replace him due to the lack of work. The Government collects the taxes and turns a blind eye. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers walking past the 'Caribbean Blue', an oil tanker, beached in a yard for cutting. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Child labourers are cutting parts of ship with oxy-acetylene torch with no proper protective measures. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Rafique (12) is helping a worker in a ship breaking yard in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Labourers are frequently using oxy-acetylene torch to cut the thick metal sheet into pieces. Rafique isn’t permitted to use oxy-acetylene torch as he is a new-comer to ship breaking yard. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Worker of ship breaking yard. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. Scrap Ships provide about 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labour. A labourer usually works at least 14 hours a day. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Jamshed, a worker of ship breaking industry, using gamcha (locally made towel) as mask that can protect him from the fume produced during using the oxy-acetylene torch to cut the ship. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Worker using oxy-acetylene torch to cut the part of ship. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Worker of ship breaking industry. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. Scrap Ships provide about 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labour. A labourer usually works at least 14 hours a day. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers using oxy-acetylene torch to cut the part of ship. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Worker of ship breaking industry. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. Scrap Ships provide about 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labour. A labourer usually works at least 14 hours a day. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Joynal works as a cutter in ship breaking yard. He is working as cutter for last 17 years according to his memory. He a leader in a cutter group. He wants to leave work but he does not know any other work to make his livelihood. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Sujan works as helper of a cutter. But, he doesn’t want to be a cutter. “I will make enough money from here to start a barber shop. I don’t have to do hard labour like here in my shop”, he says. Most workers come like Sujan came with dreams come with a better life, yet many leave with marks for lifetime. The children work mainly as gas cutters assistants and move small iron pieces from one place to another. They either work in the yard from sunrise to sunset or do the night shift. On average they receive 50-60 taka a day for their efforts. There are no educational or recreational facilities. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • A group of workers in ship breaking yard in Bangladesh. They are usually from the poor northern part of Bangladesh. These labourers toil for almost 10-14 hours a day in ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers carrying loads of steel plates without proper footwear that can save their feet from sharp edge of steel plates on ground. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers loading the steel plates on the truck. These steel plates are used as the raw materials in the steel mills in Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • 'I am a farmer but I dont have any land. The river erodes everything (land) I have. How I can make my food? My neighbour told me to come to ship breaking yard to work as labourer', Quddus Alam says. For the first time in his life that he saw the huge ships after coming to ship breaking yards. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • A child labourer in the ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers without proper footwear that can save their feet from sharp edge of steel plates on ground. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Worker of ship breaking industry. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. Scrap Ships provide about 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labour. A labourer usually works at least 14 hours a day. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • The Department of Environment reported that none of some 36 ship-breaking yards, which were identified as category Red [extremely dangerous], had taken or applied for environmental clearance from the government. The High Court had also ordered that no ship would enter Bangladesh territory for breaking without cleaning its hazardous materials at source or outside the territory. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • An oil tainted hand of a worker of ship breaking yard in Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers of ship breaking yards. Bangladesh is dependent on ship-breaking for its domestic steel requirements. Scrap Ships provide about 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people are directly or indirectly employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labour. A labourer usually works at least 14 hours a day. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • UMA, a ship formerly owned by the Norwegian company Odfjell, now is in its last destination...a ship breaking yard in Bangladesh, awaiting its turn. “The Human Cost of Breaking Ships”, a report published in December 2008 said at least 1,000 workers died in the last 20 years in Bangladesh’s ship-breaking yards. The figures do not include the deaths from diseases caused by toxic fumes and materials workers are exposed to all the time. It seems like nobody really cares: ship breaking workers are easily replaceable to the yard owners: if one is lost they know another 10 is waiting to replace him due to the lack of work. The Government collects the taxes and turns a blind eye. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • The ominous sign of a ship that used to be. A ship usually remained on the beach for some two to three months, the time it takes an army of workers to cut a medium sized ship down to pieces in that time. The marking of a invisible ship reminds of the marking it left on the workers who subsided it. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers loading the steel plates on the truck. These steel plates are used as the raw materials in the steel mills in Bangladesh. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Workers without proper footwear that can save their feet from sharp edge of steel plates on ground. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Ship breaking workers having their lunch in their shanty house built in the yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Ship breaking workers having their lunch in their shanty house built in the yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Rahim Sheikh taking a short nap just after lunch while a worker has to work for 12-14 hours a day in ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Some 30,000 workers are engaged in ship scrapping in Chittagong’s Sitakunda, which houses the second largest ship breaking largest after China. A survey conducted by two internationally reputed organizations, Greenpeace and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said that on average at least one worker is injured a day and one dies a week. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • While cutting a steel plate using oxy-acetylene torch in ship breaking yard Saiful Islam (47) lost one of his eyes when a tiny hot metal particle entered his eye. He was not provided with the mandatory protective eye gear used in this kind work. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • “CAUTION – DANGER OF LIFE” a notice from a strip down ship laid on soil of the ship breaking yard. Ironical like this notice, the symbol of danger hangs like omen on the heads of the workers. Frequent accidents cause deaths and have occurred due to lack of safety measures in cutting the ship steel. Early on 2009 the High Court of Bangladesh ordered the government to suspend operations in all ship-breaking yards, unless they obtained environmental clearance within two weeks. The Court also directed the shipyard authorities to ensure safe working conditions for the workers. Yet, the work is going on as usual. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Latifa helps her husband to drink water. Her husbands, Bahadur Sirkar, 38, was injured when an iron plate he was loading onto a truck, fall down and cut the thumb on his left hand and broke his left leg. Incidents like this are a daily occurrence in the ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Bahadur Sirkar getting an ancient method of treatment to his broken leg from a rural physician. He could not afford the modern treatment as he didnt get any compensation after he was injured in the yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Latifa helps her husband having his bath. Her husbands, Bahadur Sirkar, 38, was injured when an iron plate he was loading onto a truck, fall down and cut the thumb on his left hand and broke his left leg. Incidents like this are a daily occurrence in the ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Golapi Begum lost her husband 12 years ago in an accident in the ship breaking yard in Bangladesh. She can’t remember exactly how her husband died. But she still keeps the top cover of the coffin that the dead body of her husband brought in from the ship breaking yard to her village. When a worker is killed in an accident, the contractor, who is responsible for the workers, will only pay the costs of sending the body back to the victim’s family and arranging for their burial. Her only son now works in ship breaking yard. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Some 11 years ago, an iron plate fell on Fakir Pramanik from the shoulders of other workers, resulting into amputating of his left foot. After that, he learnt how to walk with an artificial leg and now he sell papers to bazaars in different villages riding a bicycle. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Some 11 years ago, an iron plate fell on Fakir Pramanik from the shoulders of other workers, resulting into amputating of his left foot. After that, he learnt how to walk with an artificial leg and now he sell papers to bazaars in different villages riding a bicycle. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • Sanaul, 46, lost his left foot some 12 years ago in an accident in ship breaking yard. He was not provided with protective footwear during his work, he said. Now a day, he lives on begging in his village in Bogra. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • The Department of Environment reported that none of some 36 ship-breaking yards, which were identified as category Red [extremely dangerous], had taken or applied for environmental clearance from the government. The High Court had also ordered that no ship would enter Bangladesh territory for breaking without cleaning its hazardous materials at source or outside the territory. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
  • UMA, a ship formerly owned by the Norwegian company Odfjell, now is in its last destination...a ship breaking yard in Bangladesh, awaiting its turn. “The Human Cost of Breaking Ships”, a report published in December 2008 said at least 1,000 workers died in the last 20 years in Bangladesh’s ship-breaking yards. The figures do not include the deaths from diseases caused by toxic fumes and materials workers are exposed to all the time. It seems like nobody really cares: ship breaking workers are easily replaceable to the yard owners: if one is lost they know another 10 is waiting to replace him due to the lack of work. The Government collects the taxes and turns a blind eye. Bangladesh. Copyright Adnan Wahid/Trikaya Photos
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