Appendix B: Demographics of Participants

JWFLF adhered to strict parameters in order to keep the identity of its participants confidential. Therefore, details have been either generalized or limited in various sections of the report. This appendix, to the extent possible and in line with the commitment to confidentiality, provides details on the demographics of the participants that JWFLF interviewed with a focus on characteristics that could be factors in shaping perceptions of the handling of hostage and detainee cases.

Occupations of Hostages and Detainees

One of these factors is a hostage victim’s occupation, which research suggests can have an impact on both the duration of the captivity¹ as well as the outcome in kidnapping events.² Of the 18 individual cases examined, the majority of the captives were journalists. NGO workers were the second largest group, with the remainder of the victims consisting of government workers, students, tourists, and skilled workers (Figure 17). The category, “skilled workers,” describes individuals who were hired by a business or corporation to conduct work overseas and whose occupation required them to obtain a technical background and/or education in order to conduct the work.

Regions Where Hostages and Detainees Were Held and Groups Who Held Hostages

The locations with the highest instances of kidnapping, especially those conducted by terrorist organizations, have shifted over time,³ with each region providing regional-specific challenges.⁴ In this study, the hostage-takings and detentions occurred in the Middle East (nine) South Asia (five), the Americas (two), and Africa (two) (Figure 18).

In the same way that each region comes with its own specific challenges, the groups that are responsible for holding a hostage significantly affect the dynamics of the hostage-taking including duration, treatment of captives, and, most importantly, the outcome.⁵ The identified terrorist organizations or groups responsible for holding the hostages represented in the sample examined here were: the Haqqani Network, al-Nusra Front,⁶ Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al-Qa’ida, Afghan Taliban, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (Table 1). All of these identified groups, with the exception of the Afghan Taliban, are designated as foreign terrorist organizations.⁷

Duration of Hostage and Detainee Cases

The length of captivity helps provide a better understanding of how long JWFLF’s participants interacted with the U.S. government. Duration is often indicative of the complexity of the case and speaks to the difficulty of the experience on both hostages and their families. The majority (twelve of eighteen) of cases associated with the JWFLF study lasted more than a year, with the longest cases lasting four years or more (Figure 19). These long-term kidnapping events place considerable amounts of strain on the relationships between hostage families and the U.S. government, making it imperative that duration be considered when examining the relationships between hostage families and the government.

Outcome of Hostage and Detainee Cases

Without question, the aspect of hostage-taking and detention events that is the most impactful to both those held and their families is whether or not a hostage or detainee returns home. While explaining the outcomes of these events is not the purpose of this report, it is important to understand the outcomes of the captivities that shaped the experiences of the hostages, detainees, and families who shared their stories with JWFLF.

The outcomes of a hostage incident were placed into six categories: rescued, still captive, executed, escaped, released, or died in captivity. Victims who were classified under “died in captivity” were cases where the individual had suffered from an illness that resulted in death, or died due to militant infighting or accidental targeting. These cases vary from the victims who were killed by the group holding them, which were classified under “executed.”

Of the 14 hostage cases represented in the JWFLF Hostage Survey, six cases resulted in the release, rescue, or the escape of the hostage; five cases resulted in the unfortunate death of the hostage with three murdered by the group holding them and two dying while in captivity due to other causes; and in the remaining three cases, the hostage remains in captivity (Figure 20).

The relatively even distribution in hostage outcomes helps reduce the potential for bias associated with a large number of cases associated with any particular type of outcome. Additionally, the outcome of a hostage event did not seem to have a major impact on the tone of a family member’s comments. Individuals associated with hostage cases ending in a release were just as likely as those ending in the death of a hostage to have comments critical of the U.S. government and vice versa.

Three of the four detainee cases in the sample ended with the release of the detainee (Figure 21), while the other case remains unresolved, with the family’s loved one still in detention. Of note, there were no deaths reported within the detainee sample.