A/HRC/24/47 17. According to Red24, an organization that specializes in global security, in 2011, the number of kidnap for ransom incidents worldwide stood at roughly 30,000. 22 According to global estimates, some 10,000 to 15,000 kidnappings occur per year, mostly on the Latin American subcontinent.23 While the “traditional hotspots of Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Colombia continue[d] to experience very high levels of kidnapping, the crime [was] also a significant and/or growing threat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, the Sahel-Sahara region of Northern Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, India, China, Yemen, and the Philippines.”24 It is contended that, in kidnappings, “terrorists successfully capture their hostages in 80 per cent of the acts and receive their ransom demands in 70 per cent of the incidents… In barricade and hostage incidents, the terrorists achieve at least a portion of demands in 75 per cent of the cases”.25 18. Relevant analyses show that, since the 1960s and 1970s, the phenomenon of kidnappings for ransom or other political aims has been on the rise in some countries or regions, while it has declined in others. 26 However, one study covering 764 hostage-taking incidents reported between November 1969 and January 2006 found that 75 per cent (570 incidents) of them occurred after 2000; this suggests that there was a rise in such incidents over the last decade.27 Overall, data from the Global Terrorism Database show that, during the period from 1970 to 2010, only 16.6 per cent of terrorist-related kidnapping incidents involved demands for ransom.28 19. Kidnapping for ransom has become a very lucrative business for terrorist and criminal organizations. According to some figures regarded as rather conservative, the 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 See Red24, Threat Forecast report 2012, p. 24. Based on data compiled by the organization in previous years, the top ten threat areas for kidnap for ransom incidents in 2012 were (1) Afghanistan (around 950 kidnappings for ransom per year); (2) Somalia (27 vessels seized in 2010 with more than 320 hostages taken); (3) Iraq (no figures available; complex kidnapping risk environment with criminal, terrorist and politically motivated actors all conducting kidnappings. Western nationals remain lucrative targets, both financially and for propaganda value); (4) Nigeria (more than 1,000 kidnappings for ransom a year); (5) Pakistan (15,000 kidnappings a year according to official statistics; 10 to 20 per cent of abductions are for ransom); (6) Yemen (more than 200 foreign nationals but an unknown number of nationals kidnapped in the past 20 years; threat mainly from tribal groups, separatist elements, bandits and Islamist groups, such as Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula); (7) Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) (more than 1,000 traditional kidnappings for ransom in the first 10 months of 2011 according to official statistics: one of the highest per capita rates of abduction in the world); (8) Mexico (official statistics for 2011 are likely to reveal more than 2,000 traditional kidnappings for ransom, although actual number is far higher, as some estimates refer to some 17,889 kidnappings in 2011); (9) Haiti (few hundred – a decline from 2006, when some 720 incidents were recorded); and (10) Colombia (a declining figure of some 258 kidnappings recorded by the authorities in 2011). Sheri Merkling and Elaine Davis, “Kidnap & Ransom Insurance: A Rapidly Growing Benefit”, Compensation & Benefits Review, vol. 33, No. 6, 2001, pp. 40–41. See also William Prochnau, “Adventures in the Ransom Trade”, Vanity Fair, May 1998, available from www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=1&aid=36&dir=2010/January/Monday18. Red24, Threat Forecast 2012 (see footnote 22). Atkinson et al., “Terrorism in a Bargaining Framework” (see footnote 18), pp. 1–2, containing data from the United States Department of State, International Terrorism: Hostage Seizures, 1983, p. 2. Richard Clutterbuck, Kidnap, Highjack and Extortion: The Response (London, Macmillan Press, 1987), pp. 14–46. Minwoo Yun , “Implications of Global Terrorist Hostage-taking and Kidnapping”, XIX Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. 19, No. 2, 2007, p. 145. James J. F. Forest, “Kidnapping by Terrorist Groups, 1970–2010: Is Ideological Orientation Relevant?”, Crime & Delinquency, vol. 58, No. 5, 2012, p. 772. 7