Ship abandonment can occur for a variety of reasons and cannot be defined in a single way.[1] Most cases are of ships abandoned by owners because of economic hardship or economic issues,[1] for example because it becomes less expensive than continuing to operate, paying debts, port fees, crew wages, etc. The abandoned ships may remain, often with their crews as hostages, in a port for extended periods, with the crew unpaid, and possibly dangerous cargo on board.[2] In many cases, the crew cannot leave without losing their right to be paid.[3][4] Abandonment has been described as a "cancer" of the shipping industry.[5]
If cases go to court, the sale of the vessel can be ordered, but this can take many months. Jurisdiction is often unclear because many abandoned vessels sailed under "flags of convenience" (open registries). An amendment to the Maritime Labour Convention made it easier for unpaid crew to be paid via insurance.
In 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) database listed 438 ships worldwide, with 5,767 crew members, abandoned since 2004; not all cases are referred to the IMO, so the actual number is larger, but unknown. In 2020, by August 470 seafarers on 31 vessels had been abandoned.[5] The Abandoned Seafarer Map project, an independent research tool, seeks to document all known cases of abandonment.
Seafarers' problems, including abandonment, in the Arab world and Iran were sufficiently severe for the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) to set up a network for the region; its coordinator said "The flood of calls to ITF in the Arab region has never stopped. Since we created the network and seafarers [became] aware of us, the numbers of calls are going up and up". As of 2020[update] the network was dealing with 15 cases of abandonment.