Theft occurs when people simply take resources from an organization.
Kidnapping is no different from other sorts of theft except that it involves people. The item of value that kidnappers attempt to steal is life. Kidnapping is done primarily for profit rather than ideology because it is often extraordinarily lucrative.
Current insurgencies and terrorist groups use kidnapping as one of their key ways of raising capital. Kidnappings directly support the capacity of fighters to fight. Every kidnapping contributes to conflict. There may be one victim of an abduction, but there will be many more victims of the ongoing violence supported by abductions. This makes it very important to prevent kidnapping.
Kidnappers can be defeated in the same way any thief can. Obscure and mislead them about their knowledge. Deny them any opportunity. Shrink the value. Hold them accountable.
The value of the “resource” is high and, in contexts of conflict or chaos, impunity for kidnapping outsiders is often low. These two are difficult to change when it comes to kidnapping, though not impossible.
A foreign aid worker was kidnapped by a local warlord and held for a ransom.
The local NGOs with whom the foreigner worked stepped in. They promised the warlord that they would pay the ransom out of the funds they had received for development. This, they said, was their duty as hosts who had failed to protect their foreign guest. In order to make sure this message of agreement to pay the ransom reached the warlord, they spread the message throughout the communities in the area—the communities where the funds would otherwise have been spent. The community leaders went to the warlord and forced him to return the aid worker without a ransom.
The local NGOs turned the tables by changing the value of the kidnapped aid worker and they changed the equation around impunity.
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Related Topics
Thieves Need Four Things
Why does Theft happen?
Using Theft
Theft
Resource Transfers
