New STCW Anti-Harassment (SASH) Training: What It Requires

If you’ve seen mentions of a new mandatory anti-harassment training requirement floating around maritime trade press and wondered whether it’s real, or whether you specifically need to do anything about it — it is real, and depending on your certificate status, you likely do.

Talk to Chief on WhatsApp →

Where this comes from

The requirement traces back to IMO Resolution MSC.560(108), adopted by the IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee, which amends Table A-VI/1-4 of the STCW Code — the section covering Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities (PSSR), the basic safety training every seafarer completes. The amendment adds a specific new competence: to “contribute to the prevention of and response to violence and harassment, including sexual harassment, bullying and sexual assault” onboard.

Under IMO’s standard tacit acceptance procedure, the amendment became effective internationally from 1 January 2026, having cleared its objection period in mid-2025.

What the training actually covers

Reporting on the amendment converges on a training module built around four practical competencies:

• Recognition — being able to identify behavior that constitutes violence, harassment, sexual harassment, bullying, or sexual assault, rather than dismissing it as “just how things are onboard.”
• Reporting mechanisms — understanding the channels available to report an incident: the Master, a Designated Person Ashore, flag state authority, or port welfare services, depending on the situation.
• Bystander response — how to safely intervene, document what happened, and support a colleague who has experienced or witnessed an incident, without escalating the situation or putting yourself at risk.
• Trauma-informed support — how to respond to someone who discloses an incident to you without minimizing what happened or making the situation worse.

This is squarely a crew-welfare and safety-culture measure, and it applies without rank exceptions — officers, ratings, cadets, and catering staff on SOLAS-trading vessels are all in scope, since PSSR is a foundational certificate everyone holds.

India’s specific implementation: what’s confirmed

For Indian seafarers, DGMA implemented the amendment through DGS Circular No. 53 of 2025 (also referenced as STCW Circular No. 05 of 2025). Based on that circular and corroborating trade coverage, here’s what’s confirmed:

• A new 3-hour training module — split into roughly two halves covering prevention/recognition and response/reporting — has been added to the PSSR curriculum.
• The overall PSSR course (course reference commonly cited as 6101/6141) expands from 26 hours to 29 hours to accommodate this.
• Maritime Training Institutes (MTIs) delivering PSSR were required to revise their curricula, with the updated course rolling out from around mid-to-late December 2025, and the requirement fully in force from 1 January 2026.
• New candidates — cadets and officer candidates going through PSSR for the first time, or through revalidation, from that point onward get the new competence built directly into their classroom PSSR course. No PSSR certificate is issued without it.
• Seafarers who already hold a PSSR certificate issued before the updated curriculum took effect are required to complete a separate supplementary e-learning module — reported as Course 957, an internal DGMA designation (sometimes described as “PSSRAMDT”) delivered through DGMA’s own online learning management system — before their next certificate action or, per some reporting, before joining their next vessel after the effective date.

What to treat carefully: the “Course 957” number

Here’s the honest caveat. “Course 957” shows up consistently enough across maritime training providers’ guidance and the underlying DGS circular reference that it appears to be a real, DGMA-specific internal code for the Indian e-learning module — not a rumor. But it is not a universal IMO or international course number. If you hold certificates issued by another flag state (UK MCA, for instance, delivers the equivalent training through its own approved providers under different course references), don’t assume “Course 957” applies to you — check with the training provider or flag administration relevant to your certificate. If your CDC and CoC are Indian, DGMA’s circular and its online LMS are the right place to confirm your specific status, rather than relying solely on secondhand summaries — including this one.

What you should actually do about it

• If you’re due for PSSR for the first time or a revalidation now, you don’t need to do anything extra — the updated course already includes this module, and you won’t get a certificate without completing it.
• If you already hold a valid PSSR certificate issued before the updated curriculum, check with your manning agent, company, or DGMA’s online learning portal whether you’re required to complete the supplementary e-learning module before your next sign-on, and don’t leave it to the last minute before joining — a missing module could hold up your documentation.
• If your certificates come from a flag state other than India, check that flag administration’s own circular or guidance (e.g., the UK MCA’s published guidance for UK-certificated seafarers) rather than assuming the Indian timeline or course code applies to you.
• Regardless of paperwork, take the actual content seriously. This isn’t a box-ticking formality — bullying, harassment, and sexual assault onboard are real, underreported problems in the industry, and training that gives crew a shared vocabulary and clear reporting channels is a genuinely useful step, not just a compliance exercise.

Why this matters beyond compliance

Merchant shipping has a documented, longstanding problem with underreporting of harassment and abuse, partly because crew often don’t know what channels exist, don’t trust that reporting will go anywhere, or don’t recognize certain behavior as reportable in the first place. A training requirement alone won’t fix a ship’s culture, but a competence standard that every rank has to meet — recognizing the behavior, knowing where to report it, and knowing how to support a colleague — is a meaningful, concrete step in the right direction, and it’s worth engaging with seriously rather than treating it as another e-learning module to click through.

FAQs

What is the new STCW SASH training requirement? It’s a new competence added to STCW’s Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities (PSSR) training by IMO Resolution MSC.560(108): recognizing, reporting, and responding to violence, harassment, bullying, sexual harassment, and sexual assault (SASH) onboard. It applies internationally from 1 January 2026.

Is “Course 957” a real, mandatory course? For Indian seafarers, yes — but it’s specifically DGMA’s internal e-learning module code for the PSSR amendment, delivered through DGMA’s online learning system, per DGS Circular No. 53 of 2025. It’s not a universal IMO course number; other flag states deliver the same STCW competence through their own approved training providers under different course codes.

Do all seafarers need to complete this training, or only new entrants? All seafarers requiring a PSSR certificate — new entrants going through classroom training and existing officers/ratings who already hold PSSR certification — are affected. New candidates get it built into the now 29-hour PSSR course; existing certificate holders complete a supplementary e-learning module before their next STCW certificate issuance, revalidation, or (in India’s case) before joining their next vessel.

---

Not sure whether you need the supplementary module before your next sign-on? Ask Chief directly.

• 💬 WhatsApp: +91 99581 10235
• 🤖 SailorGPT — 24/7 AI Mentor
• 📞 Talk to Chief — 1-on-1

— Sailor Success Team | helpme@sailorsuccess.online