Provocation: Whose Life Is Worth More?

by Michael Bear · 2009-02-24 12:21:00 UTC
Topics:

If you want to get an aid agency's attention, it's better to kill western staff

Interesting comments on last week's piece Trying Not To Get Shot: Trends in Aid Worker Fatalities, with a number of commenters arguing, rather persuasively, against my point that national staff face greater risks than international staff.

So, refining my argument.  The problem isn't that national staff run a higher risk of being attacked than international staff -  the problem lies in the vastly different way in which organizations respond to the deaths of national and international staff, and what this says about the implicit value organizations place on national staff.

The vast majority of the 33 aid workers killed in Afghanistan last year were national staff.  If all 33 had been American and European, would any aid agencies remain?   I think not.

[Standard disclaimer - more than happy to be proven wrong.]

[Image from Flickr - and, credit to GOOD Magazine for the idea of provocations.  Also Wouter Buikhesen.  Hard to forget Wouter.]

Michael Bear
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