HALIFAX – Of the 439 pirate attacks on ships worldwide last year, more than half of them happened off the coasts of East and West Africa.
The waters around the Horn of Africa have been a focal point for a number of years and international measures have been taken to limit the number of attacks in the area.
All told, piracy costs the global commercial shipping industry between $10-12 billion a year, and that’s not including the many attacks on smaller fishing vessels that don’t get reported.
Halifax’s Dalhousie University saw the need for more research to be done on why piracy exists and how it can be stopped.
The university received a two-year grant from the TK Foundation in July 2011, to start the Marine PIRACY Project (DMPP), through the school’s Marine Affairs Program.
Now at the halfway point, the project’s coordinators and research teams have brought together 25 experts from around the world to “roll up their sleeves” and use their knowledge to limit the cycle of piracy. They’ll also examine some of the lesser known aspects of organized crime on the high seas.
The field includes representatives from government and non-government agencies, militaries and the shipping industry.
Lead investigator and project manager Hugh Williamson says over the last year researchers have come up with some of the key issues surrounding piracy.
He hopes this week’s workshop will help shed light on some “underappreciated and understudied” issues.
Pirate hot spot to watch
Among those is the spread of pirate activity off the coast of western Africa in the Gulf of Guinea.
The overall number of pirate attacks globally was down in the first half of this year, according to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
Incidents off the Horn of Africa have also dropped in 2012, but the incidents number of attacks off the coast of West Africa has gone up.
Williamson says that is of particular concern because pirates on opposite sides of the continent have very different motives.
Somali pirates take merchant ships hostage and hold them and their crews for ransom. According to a report by Reuters news agency, Somali pirates took in more than $240 million in ransom money in 2010.
But, West African pirates are after loot.
“If you’re a crew member off West Africa, you’re a liability.” Williams says. “They want cargo.”
He says the instances of violence or murder near West Africa are much more likely to be higher than in attacks off the Horn of Africa.
He says pirate attacks on fishing boats – off the coast of countries such as Nigeria, Benin and Ghana – began emerging in the last couple of years, but the problem wasn’t on anyone’s radar outside the region.
That’s how a major problem begins in most cases, according to Williamson.
“We see piracy as a cyclical activity, but in actual fact it starts off as something small and evolves over time.”
He compares piracy to the drug trade, saying major cartels once started off as small-time smugglers. And like that, West Africa’s piracy problem is at a tipping point.
“You’re looking at, in the last couple of months, there’s probably an attack a week on larger vessels,” Williamson explains.
The good news is that the Gulf of Guinea is not yet the hot spot the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea have become.
West African states are now at the point where they have to prevent the situation from getting worse.
“The trouble is, you’ve got 13 states in an area the size of the coast of Nova Scotia,” Williamson says.
Putting child pirates on the world’s radar
DMPP researchers will have the visiting experts break off in working groups to discuss the evolution of piracy and coordination between stakeholders including governments, authorities, the commercial shipping industry, refugee and aid workers.
They’ll also be discussing the need for a greater focus on child piracy. Williamson says about one-third of the pirates captured are teens and kids, some as young as 10 years old.
Because there isn’t any sort of criteria to deal with juveniles, international missions often release young pirates. “They become pirates again,” he says. “It’s catch and release.”
“It’s been recognized internationally that these children are victims,” he says, adding there is no difference between a child soldier and a child pirate. What does make it different, he says, is that the “criminalization of children” isn’t happening within the borders of a country: It’s happening in international waters where other countries have an influence and can do something to help them.
Dalhousie’s Child Soldier Initiative (CSI) has been involved with the PIRACY Project since the get-go.
CSI Director Shelly Whitman says there is a need to understand that kids are forced into piracy.
“There was a recent capture of about 61 pirates. Out of those pirates, more than 38 are under the age of 18,” Whitman says. “If we’re really going to address this, we need to understand that children are being used in this way.”
Senator Romeo Daillaire has been a fervent supporter of CSI and was the keynote speaker at an opening day luncheon on Wednesday.
Daillaire recently donated an award worth $60,000 to the CSI initiative and Dalhousie’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. The Delta Airlines Prize for Global Understanding included a $10,000 cash prize and a $50,000 travel allowance.
The workshop runs on the Dalhousie University campus from July 25 to 27.
Williams says the sessions will be closed-door so discussions can be “frank” in developing policy options and preventative measures.
“We want people to really say what they think…and express their opinion based on their considerable expertise,” he says.
*With files from Mayya Assouad
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