Pirate violence targeted by worldwide campaign

A worldwide campaign to help the victims of piracy at sea has been launched in London's Docklands.

The organisers of the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) say the campaign is in reaction to rising levels of violence and cruelty committed by Somali pirates against captured sailors.

Chairman Peter Swift said piracy was reaching "an all-time high".

The campaign launch also coincides with World Maritime Day.

Mr Swift said piracy was increasing "in the number of incidents, in the vast ransoms demanded and, most of all, in the extreme violence used.

"The treatment meted out to victims now frequently crosses the line from savagery into torture."

Somali pirates, frustrated when their ransom demands are not met fast enough, can inflict punishments on ordinary seafarers which include being locked in a ship's freezer, dragged below the hull, or tied up on deck with a gun to their heads and subjected to mock executions, sometimes during a forced phone call to their families.

The MPHRP campaign is focusing on helping the victims of maritime piracy and their families, many of whom suffer lifelong trauma.

It aims to support seafarers through what is termed the three phases of a piracy incident - pre-departure, during the crisis and post-release.

Organisers say the level of aftercare given by employers varies enormously, from being flown home and given counselling to being told: "We can't pay you for the last few months while you were hijacked because you weren't doing any work."

Chirag Bahri was held for eight months

Attending the campaign launch is Chirag Bahri, a 29-year-old engineer from India who was held for eight months last year and subjected to torture by his pirate captors.

"We were taken up to the bridge deck and we were tied up with plastic bags, ropes, nylon ropes for four hours, and even the genitals were tied up," he said.

"They start beating up us, shouting: 'Save yourselves, save yourselves otherwise we'll kill you, tell us where the satellite phone connection is.' So that's how they used to torture us for everything."

More than 300 sailors and 18 vessels are currently being held to ransom in Somali territory.

About 20 sailors from three different vessels are also being held on land, a new tactic by the pirates, who sometimes hold onto crew members after releasing the ship.

A British tourist, Judith Tebbutt, who was abducted from a beach resort in Kenya on 11 September, is also believed to be being held by pirates on the Somali mainland.

Sea piracy is costing billions of pounds and ruining lives, with captors increasingly turning to torture and death threats, seafaring charities said today.

There are around 300 ships' crew members being held hostage by Somali pirates, the charities added.

Over the last eight years, an estimated 4,000 seafarers have been attacked by pirates or been victims of armed robbers while at work abroad.

The figures came as a new programme was set up in London to help seafarers and families cope with the physical and mental trauma caused by torture and abuse at the hands of pirates.

The new Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) is intended to help those seafarers and their families cope with the resulting pain and anguish.

It is being funded by the International Transport Workers' Federation's Seafarers' Trust charity and philanthropic group the TK Foundation.

The establishment of the programme comes as investigations continue into the kidnapping in Kenya of British woman Judith Tebbutt, 56, in an incident in which her husband, David, 58, was killed.

The two charities released testimony today from piracy victims. This included:

:: A ship's captain held for 71 days by 12 hijackers who was "threatened with a gun to my head" by pirates who were "constantly using drugs";

:: A ship's engineer who was hijacked for about six months by a pirate group who "sometimes used to torture us";

:: Another engineer who had plastic cables tied to his genitals after being attacked by Somali pirates who also stripped naked and tied up the ship's master and chief engineer and put them in the low-temperature meat-storage room.

MPHRP manager Roy Paul said: "Most people still don't understand that the face of piracy today is very different to the romance of the Pirates Of The Caribbean. Today seafarers are meeting pirates who are really sea terrorists: hard, desperate and violent criminals.

"In Somalia in the early days of piracy they told us that the tsunami of 2004 took the toxic waste that the Western world had dumped and put it on to their shores, poisoning their fish and destroying their livelihoods, and there was some sympathy about this.

"However, from taking small fishing boats to hold for a small ransom to feed their people they very quickly moved into the low-risk, high-return business of taking ships and their crews hostage."

MPHRP chairman Peter Swift said: "Every single day of the year more than 100,000 seafarers experience anxiety and fear while sailing in, or towards, piracy infested waters while their families share these worries, frequently with a feeling of helplessness."

VLADIVOSTOK, September 27 (Itar-Tass) — Seafarers’ unions of East Asian countries on Tuesday began a week of fighting flags of “convenience.” At the major ports of the Pacific coast of Russia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, union activists will check at sea vessels carrying such flags the observance by ship owners of sailors’ rights to decent wages and social protection.

At Nakhodka port on Tuesday, the Far Eastern regional organisation of the Seafarers’ Union of Russia (SUR) checked the Silvana coal vessel with a Chinese crew and the STL Maya coal ship with sailors from Burma. Both vessels sail under the flag of Panama and are owned by companies from Taiwan and Japan. Chairman of the SUR Far Eastern regional organisation Nikolai Sukhanov said that the wages of Chinese seamen are $600 a month, and the Burmese sailors are paid only $350. Meanwhile, the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) requires from ship owners to pay ordinary crewmembers no less than 1,950 dollars a month.

Sukhanov asked the captains of both coal vessels to contact the ship owners and inform them about the ITF requirements to observe the seafarers’ rights to decent wages. If this requirement is not met, then at the next ports of call the Silvana and Maya STL ships may be met with protest actions of the dockers’ unions activists that are members of the International Transport Workers' Federation.

Checks of ships flying the flags of convenience, behind which Russian ship owners unwilling to comply with the ITF requirements are hiding, are also underway on Tuesday at major ports of Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan. If violations at ships belonging to Russian companies are exposed, this will be reported to the Far Eastern regional organisation of the Seafarers’ Union of Russia for taking appropriate measures to ensure the rights of seafarers.

The term flag of convenience describes the business practice of registering a merchant ship in a sovereign state different from that of the ship's owners, and flying that state's civil ensign on the ship. Ships are registered under flags of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the regulations of the owner's country. The closely-related term open registry is used to describe an organization that will register ships owned by foreign entities.

The term “flag of convenience” has been in use since the 1950s and refers to the civil ensign a ship flies to indicate its country of registration or flag state. A ship operates under the laws of its flag state, and these laws are used if the ship is involved in an admiralty case.

The modern practice of flagging ships in foreign countries began in the 1920s in the United States, when ship owners frustrated by increased regulations and rising labour costs began to register their ships to Panama. The use of flags of convenience steadily increased, and in 1968, Liberia grew to surpass the United Kingdom as the world's largest shipping register. As of 2009, more than half of the world’s merchant ships are registered under flags of convenience, and the Panamanian, Liberian, and Marshallese flags of convenience account for almost 40 percent of the entire world fleet, in terms of deadweight tonnage.

Flag-of-convenience registries are often criticized. As of 2009, thirteen flag states have been found by international shipping organizations to have substandard regulations. A basis for many criticisms is that the flag-of-convenience system allows ship owners to be legally anonymous and difficult to prosecute in civil and criminal actions. Ships with flags of convenience have been found engaging in crime and terrorism, frequently offer substandard working conditions, and negatively impact the environment, primarily through illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. As of 2009, ships of thirteen flags of convenience are targeted for special enforcement by countries that they visit. Supporters of the practice, however, point to economic and regulatory advantages, and increased freedom in choosing employees from an international labour pool.

***ITF Announces Assistance for Piracy Victims (9/29)

The International Transport Workers’ Federation has issued the following news release, dated Sept. 29. For more information, check out http://www.mphrp.org/

Help for piracy victims launches today

A program to help seafarers and families cope with the physical and mental trauma caused by torture and abuse at the hands of pirates launches today in London, England.

Pirates are routinely using extreme brutality and the threat of death against seafarers and their relatives. The new Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Program (MPHRP) is intended to help those seafarers and their families cope with the resulting pain and anguish.

Funded by the ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) Seafarers’ Trust charity and The TK Foundation, and chaired by Peter Swift, formerly MD of industry body INTERTANKO, the new program speaks for an alliance of shipowners, trade unions, managers, manning agents, insurers and welfare associations representing the entire shipping industry, from crews to owners.

Its mission is to aid seafarers who have been or may be subject to pirate attack. Somali-based pirates now regularly treat hostage seafarers with extreme violence in order to put pressure on their families and/or employers to expedite their ransom demands. This includes phoning family members and making the seafarer plead for his life while he is abused and threatened with death, and filming this and posting it online for relatives to see.

Peter Swift, MPHRP chair, explained: “Piracy is reaching an all-time high: in the number of incidents, in the vast ransoms demanded and, most of all, in the extreme violence used. The treatment meted out to the victims now frequently crosses the line from savagery into torture.”

“The effects are potentially horrendous,” he continued. “For those, say, who successfully resisted capture but were nearly burnt alive in the room in which they barricaded themselves; for the brutalized hostages; and for those who daily put to sea in fear that it may at any time happen to them. And that’s not to forget the families, who are now firmly on the pirates’ target list.”

Roy Paul, of the ITF Seafarers’ Trust, and MPHRP program manager, added: “Until now, there has been little coordinated help for those who are suffering. Now that will change. With the help of those in the industry who want to do their best for those involved, we intend to build up a network of first responders and get psychosocial help for affected crews.”

He concluded: “We have already been listening to seafarers and recording their experiences. Those will lay the foundation for new guides for seafarers, families and employers, for training in their use, and for building the networks of human and medical help that are now desperately needed.”

Peter Swift and Roy Paul will be speaking at the event alongside Dr Marion Gibson, psychosocial consultant to the MPHRP. Other guests include: Second Engineer Chirag Bahri, who was held hostage by pirates for eight months and was subjected to torture; Bishop Kalathiparambil, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People; Rear Admiral Ort, chief of staff of NATO’s HQ in Northwood; Capt. Andy Winbow, assistant secretary general, IMO; leaders of international shipping organizations and other program partners.

The MPHRP partner organizations are: BIMCO, ICMA, ICSW, IFSMA, IGP&I, IMB, IMEC, IMHA, Intercargo, InterManager, INTERTANKO, IPTA, ISAN, ISF, ITF, IUMI, OCIMF and SIGTTO.

The MPHRP observers are the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the NATO Shipping Centre.

The MPHRP funders are the ITF Seafarers’ Trust and The TK Foundation.