I am aboard a former military preposition ship, the M/V Abby G, formerly known as M/V Cpl Louis Hauge, which saw many years of service in Diego Garcia, Guam and Saipan.

Sealift Inc. recently purchased her from Maersk Lines, Limited.

She's over 30 years old, big and slow, and rides in the swells like an old hooker sashaying down Bourbon Street.

We're headed for East Africa with stops in Haifa, Israel to drop off trucks, transit the Suez Canal, then around the Horn of Africa and south to Mombasa, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, discharging grain from Texas.

Next on to Moriti, Comoros Islands, and Port Louis, Mauritius to drop off some boats.

The final grain discharge port will be Karachi, Pakistan, but I'm not crazy about going any place ending in "stan" right now.

The back load will probably be military equipment from Kuwait.

This ship can carry several different types of cargo.

We'll pick up an armed security team in Egypt for the transit of pirate waters, and will probably travel in a convoy with other ships through that area.

Some years ago I was on a run from North Carolina to the Black Sea carrying vegetable oil and John Deere tractors.

We tied up in Burgas, Bulgaria and I noticed a small freighter behind us and a group of about ten black men dressed literally in rags.

Soon a Chaplain from the local seamen's center came aboard our ship and we asked him about the group on the dock.

He told us that they were from Ghana, and were the crew of the ship.

The engine had broken down and they had been stranded there for eleven months with no pay.

Food and potable water had long since been depleted and they were living on the ship with no power in terrible conditions and winter was approaching.

The seamen's center and a local church was feeding them but donations were running low.

Needless to say, we were appalled and collected a couple hundred dollars, some extra clothes and personal hygiene items and all the food we could spare and took it over to them.

They were overwhelmed and gave us big hugs and wrote a wonderful letter of thanks.

I will never forget the desperate situation they were in.

I thought that this was an isolated incident but it's not. Not by a long shot.

Every year hundreds of seamen working aboard Flags of Convenience (FOC) are stranded in ports around the world.

In many instances if there is a major problem with the vessel, the captain and the shipowners will just walk away and disavow any responsibility unless they are aggressively pursued.

There have been many cases wherein seamen have been left without food, potable water, living in terrible conditions and receiving no pay for the hard work they had performed.

The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) is a worldwide advocacy and enforcement organization that fights for the rights of transport workers on land, sea and air.

They have 129 inspectors in 92 countries and in 2009, inspected 9,562 ships.

83% of those were registered under Flags of Convenience such as the Bahamas, Panama and Liberia.

The ITF recovered over $30 million in back wages owed to seamen and repatriated many who had been stranded, some for as long as 13 months.

In the U.S. and other developed seafaring nations unions have fought hard over the years to ensure that men who go to sea can make a living wage and live and work in decent and safe conditions.

There are no such safeguards aboard FOC ships unless the ITF becomes involved.

Most of these seamen are from third world countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Shipowners, many of whom are U.S. citizens, register the vessel under FOC, crew them with foreign seamen and run them until they either sink or are sold for scrap.

They don't have to abide by the same rules as American flagged ships and they are usually the ones that you see on TV that run aground on the Great Barrier Reef or collide with other ships in port or break up and sink, causing loss of lives of men who nobody cares about, save for families that often have no word of the fate of their loved one.

Other organizations that aid seamen are the International Christian Maritime Association, the United Missions to Seamen, Stella Maris, and local seamen's centers, usually funded by churches.

There are about 650 seamen's centers in ports around the world and they provide a safe haven and services for seamen far from home, including chapels, call centers, internet access, food, lodging and gift shops.

In the former Soviet Union, seaman's clubs are usually run by the Russian mafia and provide much more "exotic" services and entertainment.

Since the containerization of cargo was developed, port time has been cut drastically and this, added to the global recession, has caused reduced services and many centers are struggling financially.

Men who work at sea have been exploited for years and the practice continues to this day.

As long as profit is more important than the way men have to work, live and die at sea, it will not stop.

For more information on the ITF, visit www.itfseafarers.org.

Steve Dickson is a Mesquite resident who serves as the Chief Steward aboard an ocean-going cargo ship. His true-life tales of adventure on the high seas and travel to exotic ports are featured in "Seafaring Tales" at MesquiteLocalNews.com on Fridays.