The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has just released the report of a workshop that discussed a study titled Women Fish Vendors in Mumbai to document the current situation and challenges facing women fish vendors in Mumbai, India. The workshop was organized at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, during 2-3 December 2012 to discuss the study, articulate proposals and suggest strategies to secure the livelihoods of women fish vendors in Mumbai.
According to the Marine Fisheries Census 2010, brought out by India’s Ministry of Agriculture, the State of Maharashtra has 45,971 people from fishing communities engaged in fish marketing. Of these, 36,668 (79 per cent) are women. The situation is similar in other coastal States of India. Women of fishing communities are known to dominate marketing and processing activities, reflecting a gender-based division of labour, where women tend to be predominant in land-based activities, such as net weaving, processing and marketing fish, while men engage in fish harvesting.
The ICSF study focused on women fish vendors in formal markets owned by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and private markets, as well as unstructured markets (street, peripatetic vendors). At a very general level, the study found that, irrespective of the fact that vending has been a traditional occupation for women of fishing communities in Mumbai, they are increasingly marginalized from their livelihoods due to factors such as the private development of markets, poor maintenance and deteriorating conditions of markets, lack of licences for legitimate vendors, scarcity of fish, increased competition from malls and non-traditional vendors, and absence of decent working conditions and social-security measures. It was also found that though Maharashtra has a large number of women fish vendors, for the most part, women vendor organizations are not strong. Also, the Fisheries Department of Maharashtra has no women-vendor-specific schemes, reflecting the gender bias inherent in much of fisheries policy.
The aim of the workshop was to analyze issues facing women fish vendors in Mumbai and to discuss, based on their proposals, strategies that may be adopted to secure their livelihoods.
A one-day preparatory workshop was organized on 2 December 2012 in which representatives of fishworker unions and vendor and market associations (from Mumbai and other parts of India), researchers and activists participated to discuss the study and to make specific proposals.
The main workshop, on 3 December, brought together representatives of the Maharashtra Fisheries Department, BMC and fishworker organizations, as well as researchers and activists to discuss the proposals from the study as well as strategies that could be adopted for securing the livelihoods of women vendors.
The participants at the workshop had varied backgrounds, educational qualifications and levels of exposure to such processes, which contributed to making it a very rich environment for mutual sharing and learning.
2013 ICSF