Syeda Rizwana Hasan

In Bangladesh, a densely populated and poor nation, a new industry has taken hold. Ship breaking, the dismantling of ships, had provided the resource limited country with much needed steel and employment. The practice, however, is extremely detrimental to the environment and the health of the workers it employs. The old ships leak toxic chemicals, including asbestos, PBC, lead and arsenic into the beach and ocean.

(Photo: Mark Lewis)

The workers who dismantle the ships are poor men, paid nearly a dollar a day, and are often as young as fourteen. Western ship owners pay Bangladeshi ship breaking operations to dismantle their ships, in a sense using the third world country as a dumping ground for their waste and toxic materials. Ironically, the profitability of the ship breaking industry lies in recycling. The extracted parts of the ships are resold into a market that places a high demand on the metals and other goods taken from the ships. 

Syeda Rizwana Hasan is fighting the detrimental effects of this industry. A lawyer and Executive Director of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA), Hasan has advocated for worker's rights and environmental precautions. Through numerous legal battles, Hasan has increased the regulations on the industry, most notably in March of 2009 when the Supreme Court ordered the closing on 36 shipping yards that did not have sufficient environmental clearance, enacted restrictions on Greenpeace listed contaminated ships and established a committee to monitor its implementation. 

Biography

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