Gender shapes the differential identities of women and men, their norms, roles and responsibilities. It influences people’s (unequal) access to resources and decision making. It influences people’s agency.
Fisheries is generally considered a male domain. Women’s roles in fisheries—along the whole value chain, in sustaining the fishing families and community, in protecting natural resources and local food security—are often glossed over and remain invisible. In the fisheries sector, women face persistent gender-based discrimination and marginalization, differentially defined by the diverse social context.
Women are overrepresented in vulnerable categories of employment in fisheries. They generally lack tenure security; access to productive assets and market opportunities; decent work conditions; and they have limited access to services like healthcare, child care, credits, insurance, legal aid and capacity building. They are exposed to sexual violence, prejudices and other forms of harassment. Each and every crisis impacts them disproportionately.
Women are poorly represented in fisheries’ associations, cooperatives and unions. They rarely have a say in the decisions that govern their fisheries and other matters that affect their life and livelihood. Mainstream policies and programmes remain gender-blind or biased. Lack of data undermines women’s role in fisheries.
For ICSF, since its inception in 1986, valorizing and strengthening women’s roles in fisheries and within organizations has always been a priority. For this it has undertaken research, training, advocacy and publication of the Gender in Fisheries Newsletter Yemaya. ICSF played a pioneering role in this. Its ‘Women in Fisheries’ work has been highlighting the patriarchal practices in fisheries and how these directly relate to the unsustainable exploitation of nature, to poverty and to food insecurity. It has questioned the nature of fisheries development itself, highlighting a ‘feminist perspective’ for an alternative that is in harmony with the ecosystem and respects life and livelihoods and the human rights of all people. For more information read ICSF’s Gender Policy
Special Session 7: Shared Experiences of Women in Fisheries
The 25 Minute film (compiled by ICSF) shows a change that has occurred over a decade in different countries across the world — truthful appreciation of women’s role in fisheries. Despite differences in society, culture, politics and economics, their involvement in the sector follows a similar arc the world over. The film is an effort to understand and identify the main factors over the past decade that have shaped their role, both positively and negatively. It highlights invisible voices from the South Pacific Islands, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Caribbean region during GAF 8 at Kochi. For more: https://www.gafconference.org//
Asia Workshop: IYAFA 2022-Celebrating Sustainable and Equitable Small-scale Fisheries Need for gender equality in fisheries
Women play a large role in fisheries, but often their roles and contributions are invisible or not recognized. Women do fish (both on boats and without boats), sort fish, sell fish, process fish and cook fish for home consumptions. However, often women are not seen as “real” fishers and are excluded from fisheries organizations, do not have/ have less access than men to resources such as technology, loans, insurance and information. Women have responsibilities for household work and childcare that limits what they can do in fisheries. They often have less decision making power in the household and society. Some people might feel that women are not discriminated against, but the problem is that they are not even “discriminated”, since they are not even recognized as fishers and only seen as carrying out their duties to support the family... For more: https://icsf.net/resources/asia-workshop-iyafa-2022-celebrating-sustainable-and-equitable-small-scale-fisheries/
First in the series on Women in Fisheries, this puts together documents relating to a unique Public Hearing, held at Cochin, India in June 1995, on the problems faced by...
The 7th Global Conference on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF7) was organised at Bangkok, Thailand during 18-21 October, 2018. Download
This series contains the report of the concluding workshop of the first phase of the Women in Fisheries programme of ICSF. Held in Rufisque, Senegal, in June 1996, the Workshop...
The present paper is intended to be a background paper for the workshop titled “Recasting the net: Defining a gender agenda for sustaining life and livelihoods in fisheries”. This review...
The 5000 odd women who free-dive to collect seaweed in the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park off the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu find themselves struggling for their...
This video provides an overview of women’s role in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia. While the video features communities and workplaces in Southern Mindanao, Philippines, it represents many of...
This 31st issue of the Pacific Community’s Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin includes eighteen original articles from Fiji, Indonesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands....
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture aims to provide objective, reliable and up-to-date information to a wide audience – policymakers, managers, scientists, stakeholders and indeed everyone interested in the...
While the law of the sea has been traditionally portrayed as a technical, gender-neutral set of rules, of concern to States rather than humans, authors in this volume persuasively argue...
This handbook is designed to give practical guidance on improving gender and social inclusion in coastal fisheries and aquaculture for staff working in fisheries agencies in Pacific Island countries and...
The present report describes the current state of knowledge on gender roles in Ghana’s artisanal fisheries, and the opportunities to strengthen how the project’s interventions will promote gender equality within...
Those who rely on fisheries for work and serve as the driving force for the realization of the right to food of others, encounter formidable barriers to realizing this right...
This article traces the process and reflects on the findings of the first step in such a journey currently being undertaken jointly with several small scale fishing communities and local...
With a series of policy recommendations and tools to improve the design, delivery, and results of synergies and linkages between climate mitigation and adaptation, poverty reduction and food security actions,...
The women traders from the Democratic Republic of Congo are able to manipulate the network through bribery and derive substantial capital gains from the kayabo trade. But their Tanzanian counterparts...