New program to assist victims of maritime piracy

Original news





In London today, the program was launched MPHRP (Maritime Piracy: a Humanitarian Response Programme) to help seafarers captured by pirates to overcome the physical and psychological trauma caused by torture and the abuses they have suffered during their kidnapping.

The program is funded by the Maritime Section of the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) and The TK Foundation, chaired by Peter Swift, Managing Director Former owner's association Intertanko, and is supported by shipping organizations, unions, managers, insurers and charities that represent the entire shipping industry.

Pirates - they explained the promoters of the initiative - usually perform their actions with great brutality, threatening death to seafarers and their families. The new program aims to help MPHRP seafarers and their families to cope with the pain and anguish caused by these actions.

"Piracy - said Peter Swift - is reaching a record high both in terms of the number of accidents to both the amount of ransom demanded, above all, for the extreme violence used. Currently the treatment of victims often exceeds the boundary that demarcates the barbarity of torture. " "Potentially, - he added - the consequences are devastating, for example for those who have managed to successfully oppose the capture, but were almost burned alive in the cabin in which they barricaded, or hostage, or for those who are brutalized every day facing the sea with fear of what might happen to them at any time. In addition to these we must not forget the families, who now are becoming part of the list of targets of the pirates. "

"So far - Paul Roy has observed, representative of the Seafarers' Trust and Head of ITF MPHRP the program - there has been little coordination in helping the victims. Now this will change. With the help of stakeholders who want to do their best to assist victims, we intend to establish a network of first aid and psychosocial support for the crews to get hit. We have already listened to the sea and recorded their experiences.This will provide the basis for new guidelines for seafarers, their families and employers, to teach the application and to build the network of social and medical assistance for which there is now an absolute necessity. "

Among the organizations of the shipping sector partners in the new program MPHRP include BIMCO, ICMA, ICSW, IFSMA, IGP & I, IBM, IMEC, IMHA, Intercargo, InterManager, INTERTANKO, IPTA, ISAN, ISF, ITF, IUMI, OCIMF and SIGTTO. Also present were observers of the program at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Shipping Centre NATO.