High seas piracy, especially in the Arabian Gulf and most of the Indian Ocean, “is becoming more savage and widespread,” says Seafarers (SIU) Secretary-Treasurer David Heindel.

A coalition of international maritime groups has now launched “Save Our Seafarers” (SOS), a new anti-piracy campaign to push governments to do more to protect sailors and ship and prevent pirates from “hijacking the world’s economy.” (Click here to visit the SOS channel on YouTube.)

As Heindel says, “the world has lost control of piracy.”

All the Arabian Gulf and most of the Indian Ocean are now effectively lawless. Yet there is a way that control can be regained: by actively going after pirates, stopping them and prosecuting them. Not this ludicrous situation of taking away their guns and setting them free to strike again.

Even when the mostly Somali pirates—who are currently holding about 800 international  seafarers hostage—are captured, 80 percent are released to attack again, according to the SOS campaign.

Through the new initiative, ship owners and seafarers are reaching out to citizens throughout the world to push their respective governments to act now and show the political will to resolve the growing Somali piracy crisis before it strangles world trade and before more innocent mariners are harmed. Click here to add your voice to call for stronger action against the pirates.

Currently, only a handful of nations are actively combatting piracy and providing protection for merchant ships and seafarers, says Heindel.

Last month the SIU-crewed Maersk Alabama—famous for its April 2009 saga when pirates tried to take over the ship—was approached by another group of would-be attackers while the vessel was en route to Kenya. But this time, the pirates turned away after warning shots were fired by an embarked security team.

The campaign was launched the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF, to which the SIU is affiliated), the Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO), the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the International Shipping Federation (ISF), Intercargo and INTERTANKO.

ITF General Secretary David Cockroft says, “Pirates are getting stronger, more violent and richer every day as a result of inertia by governments.”

On behalf of all the major shipping organizations, we’re calling for help from governments to tackle this human and economic terror being inflicted upon innocent seafarers. We hope that by working together and encouraging support from the global community, we can ease the current crisis of Somali piracy.

The campaign has six aims:

• Reducing the effectiveness of the easily-identifiable pirate mother ships.
• Authorizing naval forces to detain pirates and deliver them for prosecution and punishment.
• Fully criminalizing all acts of piracy and intent to commit piracy under national laws in accordance with their mandatory duty to cooperate to suppress piracy under international conventions.
• Increasing naval assets available to fight piracy.
• Providing greater protection and support for seafarers.
• Tracing and criminalizing the organizers and financiers behind the criminal networks.