I have a 110 defender CSW with grills on rear side windows (riveted to outside) and rear window (riveted inside). The vehicle also has a metal load guard behind the rear passenger seats which is bolted to the internal roll cage. You therefore end up with a very secure load area. On my last expedition I also whitewashed the rear load area windows such that people could not see inside. A smarter method is to get an adehesive sticker made to blank out these windows or a panel as suggested earleir in this thread.

I went to all this effort after a friend had the glass from one of the small rear windows (found on each side of the rear door)removed from his Defender by someone with a razor. The thief cut them out of the rubber mounts whilst he was asleep in a campsite in West Africa and stole various bits and pieces.

Also if you intend leaving the vehicle in a remote area (to go walking for example) I felt that it would make someone think twice about breaking in.

In the event the only theft I suffered on the ten month expedition was from a mechanic who was helping me fix the vehicle when he stole a pair of binoculars. Perhaps the grills helped in this.

The grills also stopped me getting smashed windows in one stone throwing incident in Jordan.

As a generalisation though I found the muslim North Africans less liable to steal than their Christian counterparts in sub Saharan Africa. For North African travel, knowing what I know now, I would just blank the windows with a sticker this may also help in the event of stone throwing as well.