For many people outside the maritime world, life at sea remains largely invisible. Yet for the nearly two million seafarers who keep global trade moving, the realities of working and living onboard can include isolation, exhaustion, bullying, harassment, and in some cases, sexual misconduct. The Global Maritime Forum is working to challenge these issues through its new Unspoken initiative, supported by The Seafarers' Charity.
We spoke with Susanne Justesen, director of human sustainability at the Global Maritime Forum, about why collaboration is essential to improving safety and wellbeing at sea, and why meaningful change begins with listening to seafarers themselves.
Making the invisible visible
The Global Maritime Forum’s human sustainability programme was established to improve working conditions, wellbeing, and inclusion across the maritime sector. According to Justesen, one of the biggest barriers to progress is a lack of visibility.
“There’s a big part of the value chain that simply does not know what conditions are actually like at sea,” she explains. “Customers don’t know. Many charterers don’t know. There are many people who could help drive change if they better understood the realities seafarers face.”
That challenge is central to the Global Maritime Forum’s wider mission: bringing together leaders from across the maritime value chain to address problems no single organisation can solve alone.
The Unspoken project sits under the Global Maritime Forum-backed ‘All Aboard Alliance’, a coalition of 36 maritime companies committed to improving conditions at sea. After initially focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, the Alliance identified sexual misconduct as an urgent issue requiring a coordinated global response.
Breaking the taboo
Launched earlier this year, Unspoken aims to help the maritime industry better identify, prevent, and respond to sexual misconduct onboard vessels. The initiative invites seafarers to anonymously share their experiences, helping build a clearer picture of how incidents occur, how they are handled, and where systems are failing.
For Justesen, the project is about much more than data collection.
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We need better language and understanding to recognise harmful behaviour before it escalates. It can begin with something people dismiss as minor — inappropriate remarks, offensive posters, bullying behaviour — but when those things are tolerated, boundaries shift very quickly.”
Susanne Justesen
director of human sustainability at the Global Maritime Forum
Crucially, she emphasises that many seafarers never report what has happened to them or seek professional support afterwards.
“Often when I speak to people, they share stories they have never formally reported,” she explains. “Many never got the help they needed. That is heartbreaking.”
Research cited by the project suggests sexual misconduct at sea remains significantly underreported.
The power of partnership
While the Global Maritime Forum regularly works alongside maritime companies, Justesen says partnering with The Seafarers’ Charity has brought something different: direct connection to seafarers.
“What we really appreciate in this collaboration is the ability to reach seafarers directly,” she says. “Together, we’ve been able to build a platform that we hope seafarers trust and one where they can come forward, share experiences if they wish, and most importantly access support.”
The partnership reflects The Seafarers’ Charity’s wider commitment to tackling the root causes of disadvantage at sea through funding, collaboration, advocacy and systemic change.
Rather than focusing only on individual incidents, Unspoken aims to help create industry-wide standards around acceptable behaviour, reporting processes, accountability, and appropriate responses to misconduct. The long-term ambition is to develop a framework that can be adopted not only by shipping companies, but also by organisations and authorities involved in seafarer welfare and investigations.
Creating safer cultures at sea
Despite the seriousness of the issue, Justesen also shared examples that give her hope.
During an earlier diversity pilot involving 12 vessels, companies implemented clear zero-tolerance approaches to abuse and harassment onboard. Anonymous feedback from seafarers showed both women and men reported feeling significantly safer as a result.
“The policy became part of the culture onboard,” she explains. “People understood that bullying, harassment, and sexual remarks were simply not acceptable. That made a real difference to how safe people felt.”
For Justesen, that cultural shift is the ultimate goal.
“I want everyone who works at sea to feel safe from bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct,” she says. “Change is slow, especially when you’re trying to change systems, but if we start now and keep working together, I genuinely believe we can make life at sea safer for future generations of seafarers.”
