A/HRC/12/26 page 12 29. Through the adoption of various unfair practices, employers often conceal information about work-related accidents.11 Many major cases are not reported and settlements are reached with the workers secretly. In case of fatal accidents, families of the victims are usually not informed, as contractors do not use proper names or addresses of the workers and there is no monitoring or inspection of the yards. 30. Official and estimated figures do not include workers who died of occupational diseases related to long-term exposure to toxic and hazardous wastes and materials: the “hidden” deaths. It is virtually impossible to get any data about the number of affected workers, since the symptoms of many of these occupational diseases only appear several years after exposure, but it is estimated that a significant number of individuals died, and many others will die in the future, because of occupational diseases related to shipbreaking activities. For example, a medical study submitted to the Indian Supreme Court in September 2006 concluded that 16 per cent of the workforce handling asbestos in Alang showed symptoms of asbestosis, and was therefore at serious risk of developing mesothelioma in the future. 2. Environmental impact 31. The methods of ship dismantling currently followed in South Asian shipbreaking yards often fail to comply with generally accepted norms and standards aimed at ensuring the protection of the environment from the adverse effects caused by the discharge of hazardous wastes and products that may be present on end-of-life vessels. 32. The principle of environmentally sound management of ship dismantling requires that hazardous wastes and materials are managed and disposed of in a manner that ensures the protection of human health and the environment against the adverse effects which may result from such wastes. If the dismantling facility does not have the technical capacity to handle the hazardous wastes and materials present on the ship in an environmentally sound manner, the vessel should be pre-cleaned prior to its last voyage. 33. Nevertheless, the reality in the yards of South Asian countries is different. End-of-life ships are rarely pre-cleaned before their arrival on the shores of South Asia, and most of the shipbreaking yards do not have any containment to prevent pollution of soil, air, and marine and freshwater resources, nor the technology needed to ensure the environmentally safe management and disposal of hazardous wastes and materials. In addition to causing a long-term adverse effect on the environment, the current methods of ship dismantling also adversely affect local communities surrounding the shipbreaking facilities, which often rely on agriculture and fishing for their subsistence. 34. One of the traditional “cleaning” methods is the drilling of holes into the beached ship, through which seawater can wash out oil-contaminated tanks at high tide. In this way, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, PCBs, biocides (e.g. TBT) and cargo residues are released directly into the environment, contaminating the soil, seawater and groundwater resources. The discharge of bilge and ballast water pollutes the sea and coastal areas, and may cause the introduction of 11 Rahman and Ullah, op. cit.