The phenomenon of the abandonment of ship crews, to which the shipowners no longer pay wages and who are often deprived even of the essential supports for their survival, it is dramatically worsening and in 2025 it reached a new record of 6,223 seafarers abandoned on 410 ships. This was denounced by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) union highlighted that this is the sixth consecutive year in which the number of ships on which abandonments occurred beat every and the fourth consecutive year in which the total number of abandoned seafarers has recorded a new all-time high. In In particular, in 2025 there was an increase of +31% in ship abandonments compared to 2024 and a +32% increase in abandonment of seafarers.

"It is, once again - underlined David Heindel, President of the ITF Seafarers' Section - a disgrace witness a record number of seafarers abandoned by shipowners unscrupulous. Every day, all over the world, seafarers suffer terrible violations of their human and labour rights, all to allow companies to make easy money for them expenses. It is clear that this is a systemic problem in the industry, and that means we need the entire sector to join seafarers and their unions to say "enough" and act together to end this crisis."

The ITF announced that of the $25.8 million in wages due in 2025 to seafarers as a result of their abandonment, so far the union has managed to recover and return 16.5 million dollars to seafarers.

In 2025, Indian seafarers were the most affected by the phenomenon, as in 2024, with 1,125 seafarers abandoned. Filipino seafarers follow with 539 cases, followed by by the Syrians with 309. The region with the highest dropout rate the Middle East was high, followed by Europe. The two countries with the highest number of dropouts of ships, both with significantly higher abandonment rates compared to any other country, were Turkey (61) and the United Arab Emirates (54).

The latest ITF report also shows that ships flags of convenience are among the most affected by the abandonments, with 337 ships abandoned in 2025, accounting for 82% of the total. The International Transport Workers' Union estimates that about 30% of the entire world fleet of 100,000 ships merchant ships fly the flag of convenience. As in 2024, the flag of Panama was once again the flag state with the highest number of dropouts (68 compared to 43 previously), while the number of abandonments occurred under the flag more than doubled (46 compared to 20 previous ones).

To curb the escalation of this phenomenon, the ITF has urged the adoption of some measures to combat the abandonment of including the obligation for flag States to register the beneficial owner of a ship, including contact details, as a precondition for the registration of the ship, and the introduction of national blacklists of ships for protect seafarers from ships repeatedly involved in cases of abandonment, following the example of the Directorate-General for Shipping of India which has recently adopted it. In addition, the ITF has prompted government investigations into the use of flags of comodo, such as those currently underway in the United States.