The Huffington Post’s Sandy Tolan recently opened American eyes to the harsh realities of the shipbreaking industry. Shipbreaking is a practice of recycling and cannibalizing aging ships for new uses. Shipbreaking is prevalent in developing nations, predominantly in Asia. Shipbreaking has made international headlines due to a recent accord signed by 64 nations, which will require companies engaged in shipbreaking to inventory toxins like lead, PCBs, or asbestos.

Tolan traveled to Bangladesh to interview shipbreakers. One worker, Babu, was barely a teenager. Tolan asked the boy, “Did anybody ever tell you [that] you’re only 13, you shouldn’t have to work like this’?” The boy paused, and then responded, “There was another foreign guy who came here years ago. He also said this. But nobody else ever told me this before, except the foreign guy.”

Children are a common sight among the workers in the shipbreaking industry. In Bangladesh alone, there are nearly 5 million laborers under the age of 15. Young children operate blowtorches while fearing for their lives as hunks of steel fall all around them. The proper safety precautions are rarely observed. According to Babu, “[The bosses] usually don’t provide us with protective equipment, but when any law enforcement agency comes into the yard to check, they immediately provide all this stuff for half an hour or so. Then they take it back when the inspectors leave. My question is ‘Why?’ Why do they only provide this stuff when the law enforcement people come? Why don’t they give it to us all day, every day, so we can protect ourselves?”

Decommissioned ships that are set to be broken down often contain asbestos, which causes mesothelioma and lung cancer. Ships also contain contaminants like arsenic, oil, and other poisons. While deaths from on the job accidents are fairly well documented, it is unknown how many people die each year in the shipbreaking industry from diseases like mesothelioma or lung cancer.

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