Shipbreaking used to be considered as a highly mechanized operation concentrated in industrialized countries, but in order to reduce costs, ships were sent in the eighties to the scrap yards of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, where salary, health, safety and working standards are minimal, and workers desperate for work.
Children working barefoot on sheet metal, shipbreakers breathing asbestos all day long or risking an explosion from fuel residues on the ships, huge amounts of toxic materials dumped directly to the sea on the open beach, etc. are some examples of the everyday life on the ship breaking yards.
In 2019, shipbreaking reached a record numbers with more than 600 ships being sold to scrap yards.
