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ndonesia needs to produce laws to strengthen maritime security and to allow regional cooperation following numerous cases of piracy and hijacking in and around Southeast Asian waters.

House of Representatives member Charles Honoris said Indonesia lacked the necessary laws to provide a legal basis for the fight against piracy.

“Indonesia does not have a law that specifically regulates piracy,” Charles said at a discussion focusing on piracy in Southeast Asia on Thursday.

He said the government needed to ratify international agreements regarding piracy, namely the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA) and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP).

Those three agreements serve as guidelines in handling piracy and hostage situations. SUA, for example, could unite countries in Southeast Asia and make piracy an urgent problem to be solved together among members.

Another point in the convention is to avoid paying ransom because such an act will further motivate pirates to engage in their anti-social behavior.

According to data from the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Maritime Bureau, attacks in Southeast Asia have significantly increased since 2010. In 2014, six out of 10 attacks occurred in Southeast Asian waters.

Last year, the agency reported that 134 attempted attacks occurred within Indonesian territory, the most of any other country in the region.

Furthermore, Charles said the budget for the Indonesian Navy needed to be increased to ensure the protection of Indonesia’s maritime territory and to reinforce President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ambition to turn Indonesia into a maritime power.

For 2016, the budget allocated to the Indonesian Navy is Rp 16.8 trillion (US$ 1.27 billion), 17 percent of the total defense budget.

Aleksius Jemadu, an international security expert, said he supported the idea that Indonesia needed to take piracy more seriously, particularly after 10 Indonesians were taken hostage by the militant group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines.

He added that the Philippine government should have allowed the Indonesian military to enter the country to save the hostages.

“At this stage, absolute sovereignty is not more important than reasonable sovereignty. Each country needs to make its sovereignty flexible in a joint attempt to curb piracy,” he said.

Meanwhile, Al Araf, executive director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, said the government’s priority was making sure its citizens could return home alive. (fac)