By Vatican News staff writer

Drawing attention to the “the unparalleled challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to maritime workers globally”, three United Nations entities have appealed to those related to the shipping and maritime industry, especially businesses, to help address the crisis faced by the workers. 

“The situation of workers of the international shipping industry stranded at sea because of the pandemic, which UN agencies have recently qualified as a ‘humanitarian crisis’, requires an urgent and concrete response from all actors involved – including the business sector,” said the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR), the UN Global Compact, and the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The group underscored the indispensable service that the maritime shipping industry renders in sustaining the global supply chains. The workers’ role has become even “more vital during the pandemic, as they work to ensure the continuous flow of medical equipment, food and other essential goods”.

Stranded

Yet, they have become the “collateral victims of the anti-Covid-19 measures imposed by governments. Measures such as travel bans, embarkation and disembarkation restrictions or suspension in the issuance of travel documents, the UN group said, have severely strained the working conditions in the global shipping sector.

As a result, the group lamented, some 800,000 seafarers are currently stranded on vessels, or are prevented from returning to ships, either to earn their living or to return home. Those trapped on ships are often forced to extend their 11-month maximum period on board, according to international labour standards. The UN group said similar conditions exist in the fishing industry and on off-shore platforms.

Human rights

OHCHR, UN Global Compact and the UN Working Group said the “situation has severe impacts over the basic human rights of seafarers and other marine personnel, including the right to physical and mental health, the right to freedom of movement, and the right to family life”. 

“It also increases dramatically the risks of security and environmental hazards.” 

UN Secretary-General has appealed that seafarers and other marine personnel be designated as “key workers,” to ensure regular and safe crew changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN group said the response to the crisis will require concerted efforts from relevant actors, such as international organizations, trade unions, but most importantly the business sector.

Especially businesses

The responsibility of defending the rights of maritime workers extends to the thousands of business enterprises that use the services of maritime freight transport – which accounts for almost 90 per cent of world trade. 

OHCHR, UN Global Compact and the UN Working Group encouraged a meaningful dialogue and consultation with seafarers’ and other worker’s organizations, trade unions, civil society, and other stakeholders in the design of relevant measures and actions. 

By Christopher Wells & Linda Bordoni

Fratelli tutti is “a devastating challenge to our ecological, political, economic and social life”, but above all, it is the “proclamation of an ineradicable, joyful truth, presented as a well-spring for a fatigued world.”

This is according to Professor Anna Rowlands, a renowned political theologian and member of the panel that presented Pope Francis’ third Encyclical in the Vatican’s new Synod Hall on Sunday.

Speaking to Vatican Radio’s Christopher Wells, Professor Rowlands said Fratelli tutti, with its powerful social meditation on the Good Samaritan, who recognises love and attention as the preeminent law and model for creative social friendship, Is a call to everyone to take action.

“I think that the core of this document is a call for us to stop and find a way to look at the world in a different way,” Prof. Rowlands said, noting that Pope Francis is asking us to stop looking at the world with the eyes of indifference or cynicism.

He is asking us, she explained, “to stop and to begin to look again.”

A call for social action

Rowlands said the document contains a list of social actions, the first being the command that we “pay attention to the world around us, to what truly is.”

Pope Francis, she continued sees reality and tells us that the only true perception of that reality is through encounter with “the reality of all the people and of the created order.”

“His first call to us is simply to pay attention, to be with what is, and what is both the suffering and the difficulty of the world, but also its beauty and its grace,“ she said.

She noted that he finds a contemplative starting point for his social teaching in his deep association with Saint Francis of Assisi, and that this is imbued in a political mysticism.

Church’s social teaching rooted in reality

Rowlands recalled that all the social teaching documents from 1891 onwards stem from a meditation by the respective Pope on the world, and on the action of the world.

“Rerum Novarum was inspired by the action of local bishops in Germany and in the UK involved in the dockworkers strike and in industrial relations. Later documents were also inspired by movements on the ground, often ecclesial movements,” she explained.

Pope Francis, she added, is very clear that this encyclical was inspired by an interfaith dialogue and by visits and encounters he has had all over the world.

So, she continued, it begins with his engagement with a world of action and then moves into a reflective phase in which “the Pope gathers, reflects, prays, discerns and then presents this reflective response to reality.” He does this in the hope of impelling a kind of revolution, a change of dynamics that will lead to action towards the common good.

“I think that what he imagines really is this world which is based on a cycle of constant meditation and action, contemplation and action,” she said. This vision is at the heart of monastic life, it is what Bishops in the wider episcopal community are meant to do, and most certainly, it is at the heart of the task of the Bishop of Rome.

The call for a concrete response

In Fratelli tutti, Rowlands said, Pope Francis calls for a concrete response from all people of goodwill, regardless of their religious belonging. He does so using the parable of the Good Samaritan, because it is “utterly concrete, utterly practical, utterly immediate and utterly devastating in terms of what it means for an individual.”

He’s asking us, she explained, “to be interrupted in the flow of our everyday lives; to stop and pay attention to those whom he describes as ‘foreign in our own neighbourhoods’, and he doesn’t just literally mean coming from a foreign place, he means the divisions of wealth and poverty in a street, in a neighbourhood, in a city.”

He wants us, she continued, to think about the roles that we occupy in our professional lives “and he has a lot to say about the vocation of those in politics, of those in business etc.”

Rowlands noted that the Pope also talks about the role of grass-root movements and of the importance of building a new world together with those who are most marginalized and excluded, not “for them or on their behalf.”

This is an action, she said, that requires us to build relationships in every stratum of our everyday lives.

He, Pope Francis, believes that the transformation of the world will stem from that basis, but it is essential that we let ourselves be disrupted and disturbed in our normal routines, “to learn that pattern of attention and the gifts it brings.”

Social friendship

Finally, Rowlands reflected on the meaning for Pope Francis of social friendship.

She expressed her belief that according to his conception of universal fraternity that envisages a world in which we are all interconnected, brothers and sisters and children of the same God, and said that ‘social friendship’ is the concrete response to that realisation.

It’s a vision, she concluded, that leads to a structural commitment, “to forms of action together in the world”. So, “social friendship is the set of practices that allow us to realise universal friendship as a way of life, as a habit.” 

Secretary-General António Guterres “is gravely concerned by reports of the extension of hostilities, including the targeting of populated areas,” read a statement issued by his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, on Monday. 

“He reminds all sides of their obligations to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure under international humanitarian law,” the statement added. 

The Secretary-General also underlined that there is no military solution to the conflict and urged the sides to immediately cease all hostilities.  

He appealed to all relevant regional and international actors to actively exercise their influence to achieve an urgent end to the fighting and return to negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. 

Humanitarian update 

Also on Monday, at a regular press briefing, Mr. Dujarric provided a humanitarian update on Nagorno-Karabakh, noting that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) remains deeply concerned about the ongoing hostilities along the line of contact in the conflict zone. 

“Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that the hostilities reportedly continue to cause the loss of civilian lives and injuries, as well as damage to civilian properties and infrastructure,” he said. 

“From the beginning of the latest round of hostilities to today, more than 40 civilians have reportedly been killed and more than 200 others have been wounded on both sides.  Hundreds of houses have been seriously damaged,” added the spokesperson. 

Mr. Dujarric called on all sides to respect international human rights law and international humanitarian law, in particular by ensuring the protection of the civilian population and by preventing damage to essential civilian infrastructure.   

“The UN country teams in both Yerevan and Baku stand ready to respond to humanitarian needs as they emerge. Neither government has requested international assistance from us,” he added. 

Reports of child deaths: UNICEF

In a statement released by UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, the agency noted that it was now 10 days since violence “escalated dramatically” in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.  

There are already reports of four children killed and seven injured, said the agency,  noting that “without an end to the fighting, these figures will tragically increase.

“The fighting is destroying homes, and damaging schools and other essential infrastructure.  We urge all parties to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, from further harm, in line with international and humanitarian law.”

UNICEF said that an immediate cessation of hostilities, was “in the best interest of every child.”