Unimaginable grief. Deep trauma. Awaiting news about your loved ones. Is anything worse?
Hostages are taken every day in many parts of the world — sometimes they are released, sometimes not.
This week, 350 hostages in Nigeria, mostly women and children, were released from their hideout by the Nigerian military. Held captive for months by Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist organization, they came out weak and worn. Some of the girls had babies believed to be the result of forced marriages while in captivity.
Half a world away, Haitian gangs are abducting innocent people and demanding ransom payments.
And the leaders of 17 countries have called on Hamas to release all remaining hostages in Gaza — people who have been held for nearly nine months.
The Israeli military reported last week that it located the bodies of four hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7: Amit Buskila, 28, Shani Louk, 22, Itzhak Gelerenter, 56 (all three had been at the Nova Music Festiva) and Ron Benyamin, 53, who had been biking in the area.
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum in Israel announced that it would be releasing video footage showing the kidnapping of the field observation female soldiers from the Nahal Oz base on Oct. 7. The video is said to be gruesome.
Taking innocent civilians and locking them away without a trace is unacceptable, especially in the case of women and children, who are vulnerable and unprotected.
The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages defines the offense as “the seizure or detention of a person (the hostage), combined with threatening to kill, to injure or to continue to detain the hostage with the goal of compelling a third party to do or to abstain from doing any act.” Rule 96 is very clear: “The taking of hostages is prohibited.”
Hostages are not prisoners. They are not charged with any crime. There is no due process. Their fate is in the hands of those who abduct them. In most cases, their kidnappers treat them in an inhumane way, using them as bargaining chips for reaching diplomatic or financial goals, or even simply to demonstrate prowess.
Taking captives is not a new technique in war. It goes back to ancient times and the reign of Julius Caesar, but it has continued in a modern era that must shun such tactics of using human beings as bait and trade.
America experienced this barbaric act with the taking of hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979. Centuries earlier, President George Washington paid a ransom of over $600,000 to Algerian corsairs for the release of American sailors.
Hamas has a history of hostage-taking. In 2006 they abducted Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, holding him for over five years in Gaza before a deal was reached by the Israeli government for his release in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners.
In 2007 they abducted a BBC journalist, Alan Johnston, who spent 114 days in captivity in what he later described as “appalling conditions.”
Today, according to the BBC, 125 hostages remain in Gaza — 37 presumed dead. What we know from those released is that many women hostages endure sexual violence, including rape, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Diplomacy is often the best way to negotiate for the release of hostages, although some governments are loath to cut deals with bad actors. The United States government has been willing in the last few years to make bargains to get hostages home despite the inevitable criticism it engenders.
For example, the U.S. government released billions of dollars in revenue from Iranian energy sales that had been frozen under sanctions to get five Americans home last year, using South Korea and Qatar to avoid direct negotiations with Tehran.
Sometime governments make “swaps” for hostages, as in the case of basketball player Brittney Griner, who was released from a Russian jail in 2022 in a prisoner exchange.
Calculating the value of a hostage is difficult; many questions surround why the Israeli government is prone to release many Palestinian prisoners for only a few hostages. (These ratios have largely to do with the disputed Israeli prison system in the West Bank. A number of Palestinians over the years have reportedly been detained without charges or trials, or simply kept in administrative detention.)
Regardless of politics, the reality of hostage-taking is cruel and unthinkable, no matter why or where. We need collective thinking about how to contend with this global scourge.
Tara D. Sonenshine is former U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs and a senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
