Bullying on Ships – Your Legal Rights and How to Fight Back (2026)

The Reality Nobody Tells You Before Your First Contract

The coaching institutes show you photos of container ships and officers in white uniform. They do not show you the 2 AM screaming in the engine room. They do not tell you about the Chief Officer who throws tools. They do not explain that the only formal meal conversation for 4 months will be rank-based silent eating.

Bullying on merchant ships is common. It is also illegal. And the gap between those two facts is where most Indian seafarers — particularly cadets and junior officers — get destroyed.

This guide gives you the law, the process, and the tools to fight back.

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What Is Bullying On a Ship?

Bullying is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at a person or group of people that creates a risk to health and safety.

On ships, this includes:

Verbal abuse:

• Shouting, screaming, swearing at individuals personally (not at the situation)
• Deliberate humiliation in front of other crew
• Racist, casteist, or regional remarks

Work-based harassment:

• Deliberately assigning impossible workloads to set up failure
• Withholding information needed to perform duties safely
• Refusing to provide required training while criticising performance
• Denying rest hours required under MLC

Social exclusion:

• Deliberate systematic exclusion from meals, common spaces
• Silent treatment used as punishment
• Organising the crew against an individual

What is NOT bullying:

• A senior officer raising their voice during an emergency on deck (context matters)
• Giving direct, critical feedback on work performance
• Enforcing standards and discipline appropriate to rank
• A bad day, a one-off harsh comment

The key criterion is repeated, deliberate, unreasonable behaviour that creates a hostile work environment.

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The Law

MLC 2006 — Maritime Labour Convention

India ratified MLC 2006. This is binding law for Indian-flagged vessels and for Indian seafarers on vessels flagged to MLC ratifying states.

Regulation 4.3: Health and Safety Protection and Accident Prevention

MLC 4.3 requires shipping companies to ensure seafarers have a safe and healthy work environment, including freedom from harassment and bullying. This is not aspirational guidance. It is a legal requirement.

Regulation 5.1.5: Complaints Procedures

Every seafarers employment agreement must include details of a complaints procedure. The shipping company must have a formal process for investigating and resolving seafarer complaints. If they don’t respond, this is itself a MLC violation.

ISM Code — International Safety Management

The ISM Code requires shipping companies to maintain a Safety Management System (SMS). The SMS must include procedures for:

• Identifying workplace hazards
• Taking corrective action when hazards are identified

Psychological harassment that creates an unsafe work environment is a documented workplace hazard under the ISM Code. A company that knowingly allows bullying is operating outside ISM compliance.

Indian Law

Beyond maritime conventions, Indian Penal Code provisions on criminal intimidation, willful insult, and assault apply to Indian seafarers even at sea on Indian-flagged vessels.

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The Documentation System

This is the most important practical tool in this guide. If you don’t document, you have nothing.

What to document:

Every incident. Immediately after, ideally within 24 hours.

For each incident record:

1. Date and time (exact)
2. Location on ship (engine room upper platform, bridge, mess room)
3. Who was present (rank and name of everyone there)
4. Exactly what was said — your best recollection in quotes
5. What you were doing at the time (context)
6. Your response and any consequences

How to document:

A dedicated physical notebook kept in your cabin, with dated entries. Additionally, send yourself email summaries of incidents — this creates a timestamped external record that cannot be altered.

Do not document only on your phone. Phones get lost, damaged, or companies may request access in disputes.

Why documentation matters:

When you file a formal complaint without documentation, it is your word against a senior officer who has been with the company for years and has relationships ashore. Documentation transforms your complaint from allegation to evidence.

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The Complaint Process

Step 1: Internal Complaint to DPA

The DPA (Designated Person Ashore) is the point of contact between the ship and the company’s shore management. Their contact details must be posted on the ship — find them and write them down before you ever need them.

Write a formal complaint email:

To: [DPA name and email] Subject: Formal workplace complaint — [Your name] — [Vessel name] — [Date]

Body: “This is a formal complaint under MLC 2006 Regulation 5.1.5 regarding workplace harassment. I am writing to document the following incidents:” [List your documented incidents]. “I request a formal investigation and appropriate action within 14 days. Please confirm receipt of this complaint.”

Keep a copy. Print it and keep it with your notebook.

Timeline: DPA must respond within a reasonable time. 14 days is standard. If no response: escalate.

Step 2: Company’s Formal Process

Most companies have an internal complaints procedure in their SMS. Use it in parallel with or after the DPA communication.

Step 3: DGS Escalation

If the company is unresponsive or if the DPA is complicit:

DGS India Grievance Redressal:

• Helpline: 9004048406 (24/7)
• Email: support.dgs@gov.in
• All seafarers can file grievances — active, retired, cadets, ratings

File a written grievance explaining the bullying, the complaint you filed internally, and the lack of response.

DGS has authority to investigate flag state compliance with MLC. A formal DGS grievance triggers official scrutiny of the company.

Step 4: ISWAN

At any stage, ISWAN (+44 20 7323 2737) provides confidential support and guidance. Their counsellors have navigated hundreds of seafarer complaints. They can advise on your specific situation and help you draft communications.

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The Retaliation Trap

The fear that stops most seafarers from reporting is the fear of retaliation — that the company won’t renew their contract, that their name will circulate on the circuit, that they’ll be blacklisted.

This fear is not irrational. It sometimes happens. The industry is not perfect.

But here’s what you need to know:

1. Retaliation is illegal. Non-renewal of a contract specifically following a formal MLC complaint is a separate MLC violation that can be reported to DGS.

2. Document retaliatory actions the same way you document bullying. If your contract suddenly isn’t renewed after you file a complaint, you have evidence of the sequence.

3. The alternative is worse. Seafarers who don’t report end up in one of three places: they leave the industry, they continue being abused for years, or they deteriorate psychologically to the point where something safety-critical happens. None of these outcomes is better than the risk of a retaliation complaint.

4. Not all companies retaliate. Many companies, particularly international ones with MLC compliance pressures, take formal complaints seriously. A DPA who dismisses a formal MLC complaint exposes the company to PSC (Port State Control) action.

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Practical Self-Protection While Onboard

While navigating the formal process, you are still on the ship. Practical protection:

Never be alone with the bully if you can help it. Have witnesses for work interactions.

Keep your work performance documented. Sign-off on tasks. If you complete work, make sure there’s a record. This protects against manufactured incompetence complaints.

Maintain the relationship professionally. Do not escalate informally — no arguments, no confrontation outside the formal process. Professional responses only. Your case is the documentation, not the argument.

Use ISWAN. You can call from the ship. International, confidential, no company access to the call.

Contact your union if applicable. NUSI (National Union of Seafarers of India) is available at 022-22695471. Unions can advocate for members in formal complaints.

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When to Consider Requesting Medical Repatriation

If the psychological impact of sustained bullying is affecting your ability to perform your duties safely — if you are losing concentration on watch, if you are experiencing significant depression or anxiety, if you are not sleeping — you have both the right and the obligation to report medical unfitness.

Under MLC 2006, seafarers have the right to medical care and repatriation if necessary. Request examination by the ship’s medical officer. Be honest about what you are experiencing and why.

This is not failure. Reaching the point where bullying has made you medically unfit is not your fault. Getting off the ship and recovering is the right call.

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For Indian Cadets Specifically

The power asymmetry between a cadet and a Chief Engineer or Chief Officer is extreme. You are new, you are dependent on sign-offs for your competency certificate, you are away from home for the first time, and the person making your life hell has been with the company for 15 years.

This is why cadets are disproportionately the victims of serious bullying, and why they disproportionately don’t report.

Your training record and competency sign-offs are important. They should not be held hostage by an abuser. If a senior officer is withholding legitimate sign-offs as leverage, this is itself a formal reportable complaint. Document it. The DPA and DGS have seen this pattern before.

Your career is 30-35 years long. The 9 months on one ship with one abusive officer is not your whole career. Do not let it cost you your mental health or your future.

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Emergency Contacts

ISWAN — +44 20 7323 2737 — 24hrs, confidential, maritime-trained DGS India Grievance — 9004048406 — 24/7 Sailor Success / Chief — +91 99581 10235 — WhatsApp, confidential NUSI — 022-22695471 — National Union of Seafarers India

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Sailor Success Team — 120+ years of collective maritime experience. I have seen what bullying does to cadets and junior officers. You have rights. Use them.