Supplement: Turning Points

TURNING POINTS

A Decade of Change for Women in Fisheries

 Q & A

Yemaya supplement

Moderators: Nikita Gopal & N. Venugopalan

This Yemaya supplement focuses on a change that has happened over a decade: a truthful appreciation of women’s role in fisheries. Their involvement in the sector follows a similar arc the world over, despite wide differences in society, culture, politics and economics. This supplement is an effort to understand and identify the main factors affecting this over the past decadecauses that have shaped their role, both positively and negatively.

• Can we say that our discourse explicitly recognises women’s human rights, labour rights (including occupational safety and health), environmental rights (participation in resource management, climate change coping mechanisms, differential impact of disasters on women) and social impacts (the role played in community and in ownership rights in near shore fisheries)?

• Are women Organized better now? How many Organizations are there and how attentive are they at the national or international levels to gender and women’s issues?

• What are the effects of increasing mobility and participation in multiple activities as fisher, trader and wage labourer in processing industry; as farmers in aqua farms; as migrant workers; as women employed in seafood industry; and as caregivers, among others?

• What is the major change in developing coping mechanisms in your country or in the fisheries you are familiar with? Is there a marked change at the occupational level?

• What are the legislative or policy supports at the national or international levels? Are there data available about women’s employment and participation in fisheries?

• Empowerment and agency of women are important for community development. What is the nature of progress made? What are the major factors of negative impacts? What are the major factors of positive impacts? What is the resistance to these changes? Where does it come from?

Q & A 

Ms. Nikita Gopal
Principal Scientist,
ICARCentral Institute of Fisheries Technology,
Kochi, India.
nikiajith@gmail.com 

Ms. Beatriz Mesquita
Member, ICSF, Brazil and
Researcher, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Brazil
beatrizmesquita@fundaj.gov.br 

Ms. Kafayat Fakoya
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Science,
Lagos State University,
Nigeria.
kafayat.fakoya@lasu.edu.ng 

Ms. Katia Frangoudes
Researcher, University of Brest, UMR
AMURE, France.
katia.frangoudes@univ-brest.fr 

Ms. Alicia Saïd
Post Doctoral Fellow,
IFREMER, France.
alicia.said87@gmail.com 

Ms. Maria Pena
GIFT, The Caribbean islands / Barbados
maria.pena@cavehill.uwi.edu 

Mr. Peter A. Murray
GIFT, The Caribbean islands / Barbados
peter.a.murray@crfm.int 

Ms. Marie Christine Montfort
Treasurer, Executive Committee,
The International Organization for Women in the Seafood Industry (WSI)
contact@wsi-asso.org 

Ms. Meryl Williams
Chair,
Gender in Aquaculture and
Fisheries Section, Queensland, Australia.
meryljwilliams@gmail.com 

Ms. Nalini Nayak
Trustee,
ICSF Trust,
and Member, SEWA, India.
nalini.nayak@gmail.com 

Ms. Shilpa Nandy
Advisor, Women’s Wing,
Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum, West Bengal.
shilpanandy@yahoo.co.in 

Ms. Jharna Acharya
Assistant Secretary,
Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum(DMF), &
Convenor of Women’s wing of DMF, West Bengal.
jharnaacharyya@gmail.com 

Ms. Siri Gerrard
Professor Emerita
Centre for Women and Gender Research/
Department of Social Sciences,
UiT-The Arctic University, Norway
siri.gerrard@uit.no 

Ms. Sonia George
General Secretary
The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA),
Kerala, India.
soniageorgem@gmail.com