As another volatile year has drawn to a close and we reflect on the continuing security incidents that have again punctuated the calendar, we may be left wondering when will it all end.
As we look back on shooting sprees in Saudi Arabia, bombings in Jakarta, the Beslan siege, the dramatic escalation of violence in southern Thailand, the answer is unfortunately likely to be – “Not in our lifetime.”
It is time for all of us to wake up and smell the coffee and realise the bombings, shootings and kidnappings we have seen over the past three years should now be considered a permanent feature of the international business travellers’ landscape.
These risks are overlaid on top of the existing medical and personal security risks that have always faced international travellers.
While acceptance that these threats are now part of “business-as-usual” may be disheartening, there are signs that companies are tackling this new reality.
In terrorism-prone cities such as Jakarta, companies are starting to take less of an “event-based” approach to security threats to invest in the development of employee risk management strategies that serve to effectively mitigate these and other high-impact threats. They are investing in measures that harden their facilities against both terrorist attack and criminal action.
With a small amount of knowledge, good support, and a disciplined approach, the risks posed by terrorism and other high-impact threats can be reduced.
Corporate Responsibility
In the past two years, courts in France and Australia have awarded damages against employers who have failed in their duty of care to their travellers by not properly managing security risk. The judiciary has `formally recognised what society expects, that any company that dispatches its people to unfamiliar environments has a responsibility to understand and communicate the risks they will face, and provide adequate support throughout the period of the assignment.
The basic requirements needed to adequately cover both medical and security risks include:
Conducting a security risk assessment of operations in identified high-risk locations;
Developing and testing a crisis management plan;
Educating all travellers in personal security protocols and company support structures;
Monitoring and tracking security threats daily;
Making travellers aware of medical conditions at their destination including vaccination requirements and providing the opportunity for vaccinations;
Monitoring travellers;
Providing timely risk advice and access to support 24/7; and
Providing travel medical kits and emergency response aid memoirs.
Personal security
Travellers themselves have to take responsibility for their own safety. Regardless of the destination, everybody should be applying a set of standard basic security protocols. These include:
Preparation. Make an effort to understand the environment you are travelling to, such as recent security and health risks. Assess your own profile and make conclusions about whether you are at risk. These conclusions and the advice of a professional should guide your preventive measures.
Awareness. Take every
opportunity to become connected to the local environment. Use your road travel time to navigate – thus becoming familiar with terrain and orientating yourself to the cityscape. Appearing to be alert acts as a disincentive to criminals interested in targeting an easy mark.
Keep a low profile. Avoid attracting unnecessary attention to yourself. Your dress, manner and behaviour can determine your level of attraction for criminal groups. Do not discuss your work in places where you can be overheard.
Avoid routine. While you have very few options for varying your routes at the start and end of your journey, any variation in route or timing makes you a more difficult target for surveillance, which is always the first step in a kidnap or ambush operation.
Practise dispersion. With vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices now a frequent weapon for terrorist groups, we all need to avoid entertainment venues (restaurants, hotel lobbies, bars) with immediate street frontage that represent an attractive or legitimate target for extremist groups. As a rule, you should locate yourself at least 30m from the kerb of such places and protected by structural supports (columns and walls) that will stop bullets and shrapnel in the event
of an attack.
Layered protection. Never rely on one level of preventive security. By combining physical measures, processes and behaviours you create levels of redundancy
that provide a disincentive to the criminal or terrorist.
Communication. Contact with your support element is your lifeline. Provide them every opportunity to stay in contact and predict your movements.
Medical Issues
Just as headline-grabbing are infectious diseases, although not all are as scary as SARS.
The most common travel-related infections include malaria, gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, dengue fever, hepatitis and typhoid fever.
At least 20 per cent of travellers report respiratory symptoms during or shortly after travel. Influenza, among the most common infections, is associated with travel to the Northern Hemisphere from December through February. Influenza is also a risk for travellers in the Southern Hemisphere from June through September. Appropriate vaccinations are available.
Immunisations against yellow fever, hepatitis A and hepatitis B are very effective,
and appropriately immunised travellers are unlikely to acquire these infections. Vaccines against typhoid fever are only partially protective, and breakthrough
infections may occur.
Prevention of travellers’ diarrhoea is an important part of pre-travel counselling. It affects 20 to 50 per cent of travellers to tropical and semitropical areas, including Latin America, parts of the Caribbean, southern Asia and Africa. It is usually self-limited, with a duration of less than one week.
Dietary counselling remains the mainstay of prevention. Travellers should avoid tap water, food washed in water (such as salads), ice, unpasteurised milk, sauces and salsas, uncooked seafood and raw or poorly cooked meat. Consuming food bought from street vendors carries a particularly high risk.
Safe food and beverages include carbonated bottled beverages; food cooked and served piping hot; and dry food, such as bread. For most patients, a prescription for antibiotics to be taken with them and self-administered after the onset of significant diarrhoea is a useful adjunct.
