Gender in fisheries and aquaculture
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has adopted a strategic and innovative approach aimed at improving the use of aquatic resources while simultaneously increasing the social, economic and environmental benefits for communities dependent on fisheries and aquaculture. This approach, with its emphasis on employment, livelihoods, food security and nutrition, based on sound practices in the management of fisheries and support to build healthy ecosystems, places communities at the heart of all its policies and activities. FAO also implements the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and the Voluntary Guidelines for sustainable small-scale fisheries by providing scientific advice, strategic planning support and training.
Women and men engage in diverse areas of fisheries and aquaculture, which vary by region. Women are predominantly involved in small-scale fisheries and in pre-harvest activities, such as net mending and post-harvest work (including processing, marketing and trade). Their contribution is often informal and rarely remunerated. Capturing fish in coastal and deep-sea waters is traditionally the role of men, as it also involves high occupational health and safety risks.
Failure to correct gender inequalities and unequal power relationships between women and men often leads to women’s invisibility as main actors for economic development, key transmitters of knowledge and agents of change.
Despite their important contribution, women in the seafood industry face gender-based constraints: they lack access to resources, services, technologies, finance, infrastructure, education, information, training, decision-making, leadership and decent employment. In many countries, women and girls are at increasing risks of gender-based violence, and transactional sexual practices, known as “fish-for-sex” or “sex-for-fish”, are becoming a common practice.
FAO works with countries to develop gender-responsive and inclusive policies and programmes that support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture growth. Concrete efforts are made to reverse gender-blind policies to ensure that the specific and often diverse needs of women and men are addressed and that they have equal rights to access resources, local institutions and decent employment opportunities.
FAO also focuses on increasing women’s engagement in these sectors by investing in fisheries communities, improving the trade system and developing innovative institutional arrangements for management.
FAO targets institutions by supporting countries in transforming all the institutional arrangements, to root out gender inequality and ensure the equal engagement of women and men in organizations and in decision-making processes in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
- Women constitute half of the workforce in fisheries and aquaculture throughout the value chain, but they have less stable and lower-paid jobs.
- To eliminate the inequalities in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, so that women can reach their full potential, it is crucial to integrate gender equality issues in policies, strategies, projects and programmes.
- Gender statistics, including sex-disaggregated data, are crucial to understand women’s engagement, their specific needs and priorities in different sectors.
- Support the sustainable use of fishery resources, with an emphasis on food security, nutrition and the livelihoods of women in small-scale fishing communities.
- Work with fishing communities to develop women’s leadership skills.
- International and national organizations working in the fisheries sector need to advocate and raise the awareness of government officials on the gender issues in this sector and the need for gender equality.
- International organizations need to provide policy and legal support for the establishment of organizations, such as cooperatives, among women fish workers.
- Facilitate women’s economic empowerment by improving their access to technologies, credit and infrastructure facilities through organizations representing their specific needs and rights.
- Ensure that policies and programmes on economic growth, industry and trade in the fisheries sector assess the impact on women’s livelihoods, as well as household food security.
- Develop policies and programmes for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture growth, targeting small-scale fishing communities, particularly the women within these communities.
- Undertake periodic impact analyses of major fisheries-related policies in the small-scale fisheries sector, with special reference to women, taking into account, among other things, the impacts on livelihoods, migration, food security and the status of children in fishing communities.
- Include an analysis of the impact on lives and livelihoods of men and women along fish value chains in environmental impact assessments.
- Ensure that all decisions related to spatial planning and coastal zone management are taken in consultation with women in inland and marine fishing communities.
- Adopt measures to enhance the resilience of disaster-prone communities in both inland and coastal areas, by drawing on existing strengths, adaptive strategies and customary knowledge systems – particularly those of women in the community.
- Ensure that disaster risk management policies are in place at national, state and local levels, and address the specific concerns of women and men involved in fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
- Put in place effective early warning systems and other mechanisms for disaster mitigation and disaster rehabilitation, such as cyclone shelters, paying special attention to the needs of women and other vulnerable groups.
- Integrate small-scale fishing communities and representatives of women and youth associations in the development of climate adaptation plans.
- Develop climate adaptation plans with adequate funds for small-scale fishing communities, giving special attention to the needs of women, children and the elderly.
Through the Coastal Fisheries Initiative, FAO has developed a gender strategy for Cote d’Ivoire. This strategy includes a series of actions that promote women’s empowerment and gender equality in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, including a fisheries landing and processing site in Abidjan and a care center for the children of workers.
The FAO-Thiaroye Processing Technique (FTT) is a labour-saving, climate-smart and gender-responsive technology for fish drying and smoking, which is currently being used in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. This technology creates safer working conditions for women. This technique also reduces their work and time burdens and enables them to produce and earn more income. The FTT has contributed to women’s empowerment in the fish value chain, as well as at community and household levels.
FAO is strengthening the capacity of policy-makers, development practitioners and researchers to design and implement fish loss and waste interventions that systematically and effectively integrate gender equality issues. One example is through its guidance tools, such as the Gender and food loss in sustainable food value chains – A guiding note.
- FAO. 2011. Mainstreaming gender into project cycle management in the fisheries sector. Field manual.
- FAO. 2013. Good practice policies to eliminate gender inequalities in fish value chains.
- FAO. 2015. Voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in the context of food security and poverty eradication.
- FAO.2016. Mainstreaming gender perspectives into fisheries and aquaculture.
- FAO. 2016. Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in fisheries and aquaculture.
- FAO. 2016. Towards gender-equitable small-scale fisheries. Proceedings of the Expert Workshop on gender-equitable small-scale fisheries in the context of the implementation of the SSF guidelines, Rome Italy, 28-30 November, 2016.
- FAO. 2017. Towards gender-equitable small-scale fisheries governance and development. A handbook.
- FAO. 2017. Rice-rice and rice-shrimp production. A gender respective on labour, time use and access to technologies and services in southern Viet Nam.
- FAO. 2017. Women’s empowerment in aquaculture: Two case studies from Bangladesh.
- FAO. 2017. Women’s empowerment in aquaculture: Two case studies from Indonesia.
- FAO. 2018. Gender and food loss in sustainable food value chains – A guiding note. Rome.
- FAO. 2018. Women’s participation and leadership in fisherfolk organisations and collective action in fisheries. a review of evidence on enablers, drivers and barriers.
- FAO. 2019. Report of the Regional Fisheries and Aquaculture Report No 1315/FAO Rapport sur les pêches et l'aquaculture no.1315. Rome, FAO.
- FAO. 2020. Report of the Regional Capacity Building Workshop to Empower African Women and Youth on the Use of the FAO-Thiaroye Fish Processing Technique (FTT). Elmina, Ghana. 25–27 September 2019/Rapport de l’atelier régional de renforcement des capacités des femmes et des jeunes africains sur la technique FAO-Thiaroye de transformation du poisson (FTT). Elmina, Ghana. 25-27 Septembre 2019.
- FAO. 2020. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020. Sustainability in action. Rome.
- Mindjimba, K., Rosenthal, I., Diei-Ouadi, Y., Bomfeh, K. & Randrianantoandro, A. 2019. FAO-Thiaroye processing technique: towards adopting improved fish smoking systems in the context of benefits, trade-offs and policy implications from selected developing countries. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Paper no. 634. Rome, FAO. 160 pp.