The NGO Shipbreaking Platform publishes today the ninth South Asia Quarterly Update, a briefing paper in which it informs about the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Providing an overview of vessels broken on the beaches of South Asia, accidents, recent on-the-ground, legislative and political developments including our activities in South Asia, we aim to inform the public about the negative impacts of substandard shipbreaking practices as well as positive steps aimed at the realisation of environmental justice and the protection of workers’ rights.

In this edition you will find out more about several accidents in the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh and a revived High Court order, the effects of the European Union standard for sustainable ship recycling, and the story of the illegal export of the Horizon Trader. In the first quarter of 2016, 239 large commercial vessels were sold for breaking, 189 of these were beached in South Asia. So far this year at least seven workers have lost their lives at the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh.