Piracy and crime in SE Asia

How crime reporting itself affects the statistics.

The true story of piracy in Asia

Sam Bateman

Superficially it looks as though Southeast Asia is the major hot spot for piracy. But if you look closer than the absolute numbers of attacks, a different picture emerges, Sam Bateman writes.

Superficially it looks as though Asia, and more specifically Southeast Asia, is the major global hot spot for piracy. The Annual Report for 2015 from the Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) shows that of the 246 actual and attempted incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in 2015, 202 occurred in Asian waters. Of these 108 were in Indonesian waters, 70 elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and 24 in the Indian sub-continent. In comparison, 31 attacks occurred off West Africa and there were no attacks at all in waters off Somalia – the previous hot spot for piracy.

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Source: policyforum.net

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