Invisible Pirates: Women and the Gendered Roles of Somali Piracy

Introduction

As Belknap (2014) argues in her seminal text, The Invisible Woman, breaking the law is gendered. Despite the well-documented gendered-aspect of crime, women and girls continue to be absent in the study of crime due to broader resistance in academia. Since the 1970s, feminist criminology scholars have made notable strides toward disrupting the gendered biases in criminal justice research and making women offenders more visible. However, research on women offenders remains marginal and male-centered research remains the default. This gender-bias is particularly salient among cross-cultural and international research on crime (Kim & Merlo, 2014). Although an increasing number of studies analyze the role of women in transnational organized crimes, such as human smuggling and drug smuggling (Campbell, 2008; Soudijn & Kleemans, 2009; Zhang, Chin, & Miller, 2007; Arsovska & Allum, 2014), women as perpetrators of contemporary maritime piracy remains a neglected area of study.

Historical studies demonstrate that women’s participation in maritime piracy activities has spanned throughout the centuries and across the globe (see Defoe, 1724/1999; Murray, 1981, 1987; Klausmann, Meinzerin, & Kuhn, 1997; Rediker, 1993; Stanley, Chambers, Murray, & Wheelwright, 1995). Appleby (2013) suggests that during the golden age of piracy, “despite its essentially masculine character, the male-dominated world of the pirate was strongly supported by women’s agency” (pp. 51-52). He emphasizes that even though women did not participate much in robbery at sea, they played diverse roles onshore such as receivers of stolen goods, aiders, abettors and accessories, and wives and partners. The absence of women from contemporary maritime piracy studies not only reveals a gap in the literature but it also risks perpetuating the assumption that women are rarely perpetrators of and only play marginal roles in transnational organized crime.

This is an exploratory study that seeks to fill this existing gap by taking initial steps to identify the roles of women in Somali piracy. Drawing from piracy studies and using a feminist countertopographies approach, it (re)conceptualizes Somali piracy as a gendered activity. A feminist countertopographies approach is one that examines the multiscalar links of a locality or region to understand its salient features and broader mutual relationships. As such, this study uses gendered bodies as the scale of analysis to examine how male/female relationships and practices determine how and where women participate in Somali piracy activities. In doing so, it attempts to disrupt the male-biased understanding of Somali piracy in three ways. First, it highlights the general masculinization of the practices and spaces of Somali piracy most often represented in text and visual imagery. Second, it describes how Somali women are currently framed as victims of piracy. Third, and the focus of the study, it introduces testimonials from ethnographic research conducted in Somalia to expand upon and push current understandings of what role women play (and may potentially play) within the crime category of maritime piracy.

A Man’s Crime on a Man’s Sea? The Masculinization of Somali Piracy

Contemporary piracy studies have produced an extensive body of literature that takes a multidisciplinary approach to critically analyzing the issue of maritime piracy as it occurs across various geographical regions. This body of literature resonates with academics, practitioners, and policymakers, and can be divided into three main pillars: (a) causes, organizational structures, and practices of piracy; (b) institutional responses to piracy; (c) attempts to historicize and deconstruct the wider politics of piracy (Bueger, 2014). Despite the breadth, depth, and diversity of these studies, until recently, very few studies have considered gender as a central component of analysis (Gilmer, 2017). Rather, a review of the titles from piracy studies bibliography found at Piracy-studies.org featuring over 500 piracy-related academic books, journal articles, working papers, and policy reports published between 2010 and 2015 reveals that none include the keywords women, female, or gender.

The absence of gender analysis in contemporary piracy studies is both a product of and contributes to the masculinization of Somali piracy. From the discourse of policy documents to the photos included in news articles, men dominate the textual and visual content of Somali piracy studies. This may be largely attributed to reports published by well-known and highly respected international agencies. For example, a report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC; 2010) identifies the “offenders” of Somali piracy maritime piracy as “. . . generally young men raised in desperate and disorganized society, willing to risk their lives for the slightest chance of something better” (p. 199, emphasis added). Similarly, a report released by the World Bank (2013) identifies the roles of fishermen, businessmen, and militiamen in Somalia piracy operations but makes no mention of women in the 106-page document. Both international- and Somali-based news outlets also aid in perpetuating the male-biased understanding of Somali piracy. Photos of Somali men wrapped in macawiis, ¹ wielding AK-47s, and standing on the Somali shoreline staring off at the sea or Somali piracy prisoners donning newly minted prison uniforms, leaning against razor wire-topped fences, or being led to their cell are the most common visual representation of “pirates” found within English language news articles.

The understanding of Somali piracy as a man’s crime is also linked to the general masculinization of maritime activities and spaces within the Somalia context. In Somali culture, the sea is men’s space. Somali men, particularly fishermen, insist that the sea is too dangerous for women. Therefore, the act of “going out to sea,” whether it be for fishing or piracy, is generally only practiced by men. Although women are involved in Somalia’s fishing industry, their activities are limited to the hand collection of fish and throwing fishing lines from rocks. Somali men’s disapproval of women being at sea, coupled with Somali women’s disinterest in learning to fish, contributes to the dislocation of women from the geographical imaginary of Somali piracy. ² If understandings of Somali piracy are limited to robbery at sea, and if Somali women are absent from maritime spaces, then how can they be pirates? To counteract this thinking, academia and policy circles must expand the geographical imaginary of piracy to include onshore spaces and activities—and the female bodies associated them.

Victims of Piracy? The Need for a Feminist Countertopography

The neglect to recognize women as perpetrators of piracy is compounded by a broader lack of criminalization of women in Somali culture. Women are not typically viewed as and/or treated as potential criminals in Somalia. This is evidenced through policing practices that mostly target men and by the small number of women who are prosecuted and imprisoned throughout Somalia. Workshop participants described how most Somali families strictly monitor the activities of their women and girls so as not to bring shame upon their family or clan. Any delinquent behavior or illicit activities are often addressed immediately within the home or by the clan elders, thus preventing the involvement of law enforcement. Similarly, the low number of female prisoners throughout Somalia is also attributed to inadequate prison infrastructure. Somali customs require that male and female prisoners be kept separate from one another. Prior to the commencement of United Nations (UN)–facilitated prison infrastructure upgrade programs beginning around 2009, most Somali prisons did not have a separate “women’s block” (see United Nations Political Office for Somalia [UNPOS], 2012, and United Kingdom Home Office, 2015).

This lack of criminalization is also evident in the counter piracy programming direction proposed by Somalia government officials. A study by Gilmer (2016a) found that Somali government officials working in conjunction with UN counter piracy programming agencies deemed piracy a man’s crime that should be addressed by men. Officials feared that focusing on women, as either perpetrators of piracy or part of the counter piracy efforts, would make their programming efforts seem “soft.” Despite UNODC project documents recognizing both men and women as potential pirate recruits, the implementation of past counter piracy programming onshore in Somalia favored the male-biased preferences of the Somali officials (Gilmer, 2014; UNODC, 2012). When Somali women were enlisted to help with onshore counter piracy programming, they fulfilled roles deemed more “culturally appropriate” for women such as singing antipiracy songs or acting in antipiracy skits.

Although Somali women are neither openly labeled pirates nor a central focus of counter piracy programming, they are commonly described as victims of piracy. They are often framed as either the sexual objects of pirates, the destitute and abandoned wives of piracy prisoners, or the cultural signifiers of the overall destructive power of piracy. For example, a barrage of news articles published at the onset of the peak of Somali piracy provide testimonials from pirates indulging in a life of riches and beautiful women (Bengali, 2008; Freeman, 2008; Hassan, 2009). The pirates brag of their sexual conquests as they describe how their newfound notoriety makes them irresistible to Somali women. Within the same articles are testimonials from bereaved fathers and religious leaders pleading for young women to preserve their purity and stay away from pirates.

More recently, the increase in international counter piracy efforts has resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of over 200 pirates in the East Africa region (UNODC, 2014). Interviews with piracy prisoners describe the guilt and sorrow they feel over not being able to support and care for the wives they left in Somalia (Gilmer, 2017). As the arrest and imprisonment of pirates reached a peak around 2012, UNODC rolled out an antipiracy advocacy campaign in Somalia. The campaign included messages describing the likelihood of death and imprisonment and the role of piracy in eroding Somalia’s cultural traditions and values (Gilmer, 2016a). The former message was introduced among women to encourage them to forbid their husbands from going to sea, and the latter message uses social vices such as prostitution as evidence that piracy is corrupting Somalia’s women and moral foundations. In these examples, Somali women are physically, emotionally, and morally victimized by piracy. They are not, however, portrayed as perpetrators of and/or potential benefactors of piracy. ³

This study aims to unpack current understandings of the relationship between women and piracy to provide a more detailed analysis of how (and where) women willfully participate in piracy-related activities. Historically, women’s willful involvement and “irregular relationships” with pirates have accompanied the spread of piracy across geographic space, becoming uniquely adapted to local sociocultural contexts (Appleby, 2013). For this reason, it is important to study women’s role in Somali piracy as both part of a broader history of women’s involvement in maritime piracy and a geographically specific case study that reflects local gender expectations, markets, history, and politics. Borrowing from geography literature, a feminist countertopographies approach provides a useful framework for locating and making visible women’s roles and practices of in Somali piracy.

Katz (2001) first introduced the concept of feminist countertopographies as an approach for exploring the multiscalar links productive of and produced by globalization. She argues that topographical knowledge, as the detailed description of localities or regions, is produced through political processes of domination and exploitation. Per Katz (2001), “To do a topography is to carry out a detailed examination of some part of the material world, defined at any scale from the body to the global, in order to understand its salient features and their mutual broader relationships” (p. 1228, emphasis added). Using gendered bodies as an entry point, I argue current topographies of Somali piracy promote the understanding that it is a crime committed at sea and perpetrated by men. However, the findings from this study push these current understandings by broadening the geographical lens of piracy studies to include the onshore infrastructure of piracy and women’s roles. In doing so, they create the opportunity to present a detailed description of how women are not only essential to the success of piracy operations but also how piracy operations create livelihood opportunities for women.

Method

This study is part of a larger research project examining the establishment, expansion, and impact of the UNODC Counter Piracy Programme (CPP) for the detention, prosecution, and imprisonment of piracy suspects in East Africa. The primary data set is drawn from interviews and participant observation conducted in Hargeisa, Somalia, in July 2012 in conjunction with the 5-day UNODC Counter Piracy Awareness Workshop. Each day of the workshop involved a different group of “key stakeholders” who were chosen by Somali government officials. These participants were considered to be highly respected and influential individuals in their communities and were working in conjunction with the Somaliland Counter Piracy Coordination Office (SCPCO) and the UNODC CPP for several months preceding the workshop. The UNODC CPP was in regular contact with the participants during various mission trips to Somalia, via emails (where possible), and predominantly through communications with the SCPCO personnel to gauge their input on the design of an antipiracy advocacy campaign. The 81 participants were assigned to one of the following five groups: government officials (15), business community (16), religious leaders and traditional elders (15), women and youth (20), and media (15). Each group met for 1 day over the course of the 5-day workshop.

As a UNODC consultant at the time, I assisted in coconducting the workshop along with another UNODC staff member and a Somali interpreter and with guidance provided by the SCPCO. At the commencement of each workshop session, SCPCO personnel and the UNODC personnel reintroduced ourselves, gave a brief overview of the goals of the workshop, informed everyone of my study, and asked participants for their permission to use the data from the workshop for publication. Participants were also informed of the usual guarantees (e.g., guarantees of anonymity, ability to withdraw/not answer, etc.). In an effort to be sensitive to the fact that slightly more than half of the participants could not read or write, they gave their informed consent verbally. All participants and workshop leaders/organizers gave consent to use the data for publication. Then, the sessions transitioned into an open forum where participants were asked to discuss how piracy directly affects their communities and to propose how their communities can play a role in combating piracy. This format enabled participants to share their own personal stories as well as the stories of their friends, families, and communities.

When I was not actively participating in facilitating a session, I took copious notes of the stories being shared. Each session was recorded using an audio recorder. After the conclusion of the workshop, I reviewed the audio recordings and transcribed notes.

Women participants were invited to attend the sessions designated for women and youth and media. Two women were invited to, but did not attend, the business leaders’ session. Women were not invited to the sessions designated for government officials and religious leaders and elders. I announced after the women and youth session and media session that I wanted to speak one-on-one with female participants to learn more about their views of piracy. ⁴ Women who were interested approached me immediately or during lunch to arrange a time to meet. In total, I conducted individual interviews with 22 of the women who attended the workshop—14 from the women and youth session and eight from the media session. During the individual interviews, participants were again briefed on the goals of the study and provided the usual guarantees. ⁵ I started each interview by asking the general question, “What types of social and economic impacts does piracy have on your community?” I tried to allow the respondents to talk as much as possible by keeping my prompts and comments to a minimum.

Although the sample size for this study is small and not representative, it provides a unique insight because of the position these women have as “key stakeholders” in their communities. These women were highly respected within their sectors (e.g., well-known journalists, businesswomen, women’s group leaders) and often served as mentors/advisors within their communities. As such, their unique positions enable them to be the eyes and ears of many of the women in their community. Of the women who participated in the individual interviews, all but one were approximately 40 years of age or older, Muslim, and had no formal education. The one exception was a young Somali American female, aged 20 years, who had recently moved to Somalia to work for a local nongovernmental organization (NGO). She possessed a college degree and came from a wealthy family by Somali standards.

I employed a narrative criminology approach to analyze the data collected from the workshop interviews and participant observation. The analysis of narratives is a method for understanding and conveying how people experience events and circumstances (Sandberg, Sebastien, & Copes, 2015; Wieder, 1974/2015). During these events and circumstances, gender is always at play. Research by Fleetwood (2015) on women’s experiences in the drug trade demonstrates how a narrative approach can help conceptualize ways in which women receive and produce discourses about gender in their lawbreaking. In doing so, Fleetwood helps move beyond the “impasse” between “real” and “discursive” women in feminist theory and advances feminist criminology studies into new territory.

However, a narrative criminology approach is not without its limitations. Narratives are not exact truths and can have multiple meanings depending upon where they are spoken, under what context, by whom, and for whom (Sandberg et al., 2015). Thus, understanding narratives is a very complex and subjective processes. Similarly, narratives are the product of the storyteller and the audience; they may be created and communicated for a purpose that may serve the specific context (Sandberg & Pedersen, 2009). Despite the limitations of this approach, narrative criminology is also a vital tool for enabling subaltern voices to contribute to understandings of how specific crimes are experienced and responded to (Bhabha, 1996; Spivak,1988). The data collected from marginalized groups in underrepresented geographical regions can help reinforce and/or challenge existing knowledges and frameworks for theorizing crime and criminal behavior. In this study, the voices of the Somali people, and specifically Somali women, contribute directly to expanding current understandings of the gendered aspects of Somali piracy.

Utilizing a methodology similar to that used by Lois Presser (2010), I coded for themes of interest and wrote a summary of each workshop session and individual interview. The initial themes of interest were informed by the needs of UNODC and included how piracy affects trade, security, society and culture, and myths and truths. However, while coding I noted gender as a reappearing theme that seemed to affect the ways in which piracy operated, was experienced, and was responded to. Although the theme of gender was absent from the final UNODC reports, it served as the basis of analysis for this study. I also wish to acknowledge that my professional status as a UNODC consultant may have created some bias during the individual interviews. Whereas some participants may have been hesitant to openly discuss piracy-related issues that involved friends and family members, others may have over-estimated my capacity to effect change in counter piracy policy and programming at the UN.

Findings: The Women of Somali Piracy

Discussions that arose during workshop sessions, and details that emerged during the individual interviews, provide a more nuanced understanding of the various gendered practices, roles, and relationships of Somali piracy. Participant narratives reveal that women are very active in piracy, albeit their involvement is limited to activities onshore in Somalia. A recently published report by the World Bank (2013) states,

The Somali [piracy] business model relies heavily on onshore support infrastructure to conduct ransom negotiations . . . Because Somali piracy is largely a highjack-for-ransom enterprise, its onshore operations also require reliable sources of food, water, energy, and especially khat . . . (p. xxiv)

This statement underscores the important role onshore support infrastructures play in the Somali piracy business model. Unpacking this “large onshore support infrastructure” helps make visible the ways in which women both produce and contribute to the maintenance of the daily operational landscape of Somali piracy. In the sections that follow, I introduce and discuss four roles in which women are actively involved in the onshore support infrastructure of Somali piracy as relationship facilitators, resource dealers, care workers, and financial investors. I discuss each role in an order that reflects what was deemed as the most common to the least common form of women’s participation in piracy. The discussion of each role is based predominantly on information shared during workshop sessions and individual interviews.

Discussion: Somali Piracy as a Gendered Activity and the Politics of Invisibility

Criminology can no longer ignore women’s involvement in transnational and organized crime. Over the past two decades, research has increasingly explored women’s roles and activities in the Italian Mafia, Colombian drug cartels, Nigerian human trafficking networks, to name a few. This study intends to broaden the literature on women’s roles in transnational organized crime, complement other exploratory studies (see Hubschle, 2014), and encourage the reconceptualization of maritime piracy as an activity that includes the active participation of women. By taking a feminist countertopography approach that makes visible the “intricate relations” that bind people and practices across spaces, we begin to see how (and where) the roles of men and women may be intertwined in piracy operations (Katz, 2001). Whereas piracy is generally considered a “man’s crime,” findings suggest that women are involved in very specific, gendered, feminine practices that are a critical part of the onshore infrastructure of Somali piracy. Popular topographies of Somali piracy tend to focus on the maritime aspects of the crime, namely, acts of violence or detention committed against ships at sea. By broadening the geographical scope of the topography to include onshore people and practices, we begin to see the vital piracy-related activities being carried out by Somali women.

Somali women are actively participating in piracy as relationship facilitators, resource dealers, care workers, and financial investors. How does a feminist countertopography approach help expand our understanding of the gendered roles, practices, and places of Somali piracy? First, women as relationship facilitators demonstrate that women are participating in the recruitment, transportation, and housing required to facilitate relationships between Somali women and pirates. These activities both reinforce and challenge traditional Somali gender expectations of courtship practices and marriage. They reinforce the critical role that elder women play in arranging courtship opportunities for younger women—it is a woman’s duty to approach another woman about a potential suitor. However, it challenges these same traditions in that the elder woman is most often not a family member. Likewise, most of the arrangements do not actually result in a marriage. Relationship facilitators also appear to work in concert with other relationship facilitators, creating a vast operational network. In doing so, they are not only enabling the movement of women from one Somali region to another but they are also enabling the movement of women between remote rural areas, large towns, and coastal villages.

Although some women are moved voluntarily, others are moved forcibly or coerced. Arguably, some relationship facilitators engage in practices of human trafficking similar to women operating in other parts of the world such as the female snakeheads in China (Zhang et al., 2007) and the madams of Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon (Becucci, 2008; Siegel, 2007). The relationship facilitators of piracy seek out young girls and women who are interested in the perceived lavish lifestyle associated with pirates. However, it would be inaccurate to claim that all young girls and women are being blindly misled or duped by relationship facilitators and the promises of pirate riches. Many scholars argue against the simplistic rigidity of the victim/perpetrator and passive/active myth of human trafficking (Siegel, 2012). Rather, taking direction from Iacono’s (2014) study of the trafficking of Nigerian women, it may be more useful to consider each individual case of “relationship facilitation” separately to better understand the complex dynamics between those seeking relationships with pirates and those facilitating the relationships in Somalia.

The resource dealers of Somali piracy play a critical role in transporting goods within communities and across regional borders at the request of pirate groups. The goods range from soaps and food to guns and khat. The gendered expectation that it is a woman’s duty to purchase food and household items, coupled with the lack of criminalization of women in Somalia, creates a situation where resource dealers can regularly purchase and move about with large amounts of goods. The care workers of Somali piracy then utilize these goods to provide for the well-being of pirates and their hostages. Care work includes the performance of various tasks such as cooking and cleaning and can take place both inside pirate residences and aboard pirated vessels. Although Somali women continue to be discouraged from going to sea, an exception is made for those caring for hostages aboard pirated vessels. The presence of these care workers aboard pirated vessels simultaneously reinforces the notion that care work is women’s work while challenging the notion that maritime space is man’s space.

Relationship facilitators, resource dealers, and care workers support existing theories of women’s participation in organized crime as “doing gender” by using their gendered social positions, relationships, and identities, to forge important roles within Somali piracy operations (Fleetwood, 2014; Samuels, 2010). However, the financial investors of Somali piracy provide evidence that women can also participate in roles that are not feminized and/or products of broader Somali gender expectations. Most women financial investors only begin actively participating in Somali piracy after the death of their husband. When their husbands die, the women assume the roles of financial investors either by directly taking over his role as investor or by utilizing an inheritance to begin investing in piracy. This may be considered an example of an “ascribed” brokerage link in that the women’s marriages to their husbands precede their participation in organized crime activities (Kleemans, Kruisbergen, & Kouwenberg, 2014). Little is known about the characteristics or qualifications of the women financial investors of Somali piracy. Perhaps they possess managerial and organizational skills like those demonstrated by women who participate in money laundering, racketeering, and other financial crimes. Such skills have helped propel women to leadership positions within mafia organizations in Russia, Italy, and elsewhere throughout the world (Gilinsky, 2007).

The findings of this exploratory research not only fill a gap in piracy studies and scholarship on women’s involvement in transnational organized crime but they also reveal the complex entanglement of local gender expectations, markets, history, and politics at work in onshore Somali piracy operations. As argued by Arsovska and Begum (2014), “Culture and history, which affect interests and wants, are important factors that are vital to understanding female criminality across socio-cultural space” (p. 107). It is imperative to acknowledge the local Somali context, and the politics behind making women pirates invisible/visible, before theorizing how these findings can affect existing and future counter piracy programming.

Somali politicians, religious leaders, and elders have a vested interest in seeing that the women pirates of Somalia remain invisible. Keeping these women invisible helps maintain the appearance of Somalia’s “hard” stance against piracy while also preserving the respectability of “their” women. Making the women of Somali piracy visible risks sending the message to the world that Somali women are immoral and at odds with traditional Somali culture. For this reason, it is unlikely that Somali leadership will either encourage public dialogue about women pirates or advocate for law enforcement action targeting their activities. Whereas the UNODC recognizes the potential for women to be recruited into and be active in piracy operations, their programming activities must respect the needs and desires of the member states where the projects are being operationalized. In other words, even though the consideration of gender is written into official UNODC counter piracy project documents, whether it is realized in practice on the ground is determined by those in positions of power in Somalia. Despite the potential barriers to creating a more gender-aware counter piracy approach in the Somali context, making women pirates visible is the first step to challenging male-biased histories, narratives, and topographies of contemporary maritime piracy. The time is ripe for conducting exploratory studies in other geographic locations throughout the world and to begin advocating for counter piracy policies and programming that takes seriously the varied roles of women in maritime piracy.