A meteoric rise in stowaways has prompted the world's largest ship operator and the UK P&I Club to look for ways to tackle the problem

A 100 % increase in the cost of stowaway incidents in the past ten years means that stowaways cost the international shipping industry more than $20m per year.

The meteoric rise in stowaways has prompted the world's largest ship operator, NYK of Japan, and the UK P&I Club, to look for ways to tackle the problem.

Fifty members of NYK senior regional management and representatives from the UK Club met to discuss the problem.

NYK said it wants to raise awareness of stowaway problems among its shore based and terminal operators in China and of the preventive measures available to reduce the number of incidents.

The UK Club's Peter Lau said that in 2007 his club was involved in around 120 stowaway cases, costing over $2m. He said numbers have fallen since 1998-2003 when they were consistently between 350 and 400. The average cost per case, however, has climbed from under $6,000 in 2000 to around $14,500 in 2007.

Over the 1998-2007 period, South Africa topped the list of countries in which UK Club stowaway cases arose with 190. Next came the Ivory Coast (169), followed by Senegal (165), Argentina (106) and the United States (105). Between 50 and 80 cases arose in Italy, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Spain and Gabon.

“If a security culture is pursued vigorously from the booking desk to the floodlit deck of the ship, potential stowaways and smugglers will never have it easy.

Peter Lau, UK P&I Club

Continued Lau: ‘The main regions for stowing away are China and west and east Africa. The Asia Pacific region poses its own challenges with the illegal trafficking of humans. Despite official efforts, the tide of illegal immigrants to the US and Europe from Asia, particularly China, continues to cause concern. Shippers, slot charterers and some terminal personnel sometimes collude in such crime.’

NYK had also experienced a marked downturn in the number of stowaway cases over the last decade, particularly in containerships.

Lau emphasised the enhanced need for vigilance, searches and close co-operation with the authorities.

He observed: ‘The stowaway problem is never going to go away. Individuals seeking a better life will always find ways to get aboard ships, and those making money from the trafficking of people will always manage to conceal their ‘cargo’ and ship it without detection.

‘The container trade offers a tempting pipeline for smugglers which can only be tackled through close cooperation between terminals and ship owners. Cargo may be loaded into a box a thousand miles from a port and remain unseen until unloaded from that same box on the other side of the world. The security challenge thus starts from the moment a container booking is received.’

‘If a security culture is pursued vigorously from the booking desk to the floodlit deck of the ship, potential stowaways and smugglers will never have it easy,’ concluded Lau.