In comparison with some professional workers, the seafarer gets a rough deal. Hours can be long, the work can be dangerous and there are noticeably fewer opportunities to go ashore for essentials. Yet somewhere in the region of 1.2M men and women make their living at sea. The dangers of working at sea extend beyond volatile cargoes and heavy weather. A crew can be vulnerable to an unscrupulous employer - becoming virtual hostages to the employer's wishes - and while many countries have enacted laws to ensure this is preventable and that standards are enforceable, those standards still have gaps. The International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency, promotes standards for government, employer and worker alike. The Governing Body of the International Labour Office (the organisation's secretariat), along with ILO members, decided to fill these gaps at a meeting in Geneva in 2001. The aim was to create a framework for labour standards and the work built on that of the Joint Maritime Commission (JMC), which in 1999 undertook to scrutinise ILO standards and put forward recommendations.
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