Inclusion in the sector is of huge concern right now—specially in this, the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA). There is an urgent need to recognize women harvesters, gleaners and fishers as full-time fishworkers at the national level and treated accordingly.
This simple thought was at the heart of the national workshop on ‘SSF Guidelines and Women in Fisheries, India’. The workshop was organized by the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) Trust at Asha Nivas Social Service Centre in Chennai, India, on April 8-10, 2022. 61 participants from West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and Maharashtra attended the workshop. The participants included harvesters and those working in the post-harvest sector.
A major focus of the workshop was on gender equality and equity for women in fisheries, recognizing livelihood spaces and improving their participation in decision-making processes. It was the third in a series—the two previous had been conducted in 2016 and 2019.
The workshop was divided into eight sessions, each session focussed on a specific aspect of women in fisheries. In the first, women harvesters—Gita Mridha and Parul Haldar, tiger widows from the Sundarbans in West Bengal, Jyotsna Rani Bar, an active woman fisher from West Bengal, Meenachi and Rakkammal, seaweed collectors of Tamil Nadu and Sunayana Suhas Meher and Lila Vasant Karbhari, shellfish gatherers from Maharashtra—spoke about their livelihoods.
Nalini Nayak led a discussion on the contribution of small-scale artisanal fisheries to food and livelihood security, and problems traditional livelihoods face in the second session. In the third session, Manas Roshan and Nivedita Shridhar discussed the linkages between fishworkers’ lives and livelihoods and national and international environmental processes. In the fourth session, Nikita Gopal spoke about issues and challenges faced by women fish harvesters.
In the fifth session Aswathy Senan, presented a study focussed on the fisheries budget, and the socio-economic status of women in fishing communities in Tamil Nadu. The session had other speakers too. P.S. Ananthan provided an overview of budget allocations and programmes and schemes available for women. Sonia George discussed the rights of women fishworkers in light of the new labour codes.
One entire session was devoted to the discussion on women representation in fishworker organizations and associations, and their visibility in policy.
Presentations were followed by group discussions. Participants—divided by state—debated common questions, problems, and offered suggestions. The participants came up with state (province) level and national level action points, which fed into developing the workshop statement.
At the end of the workshop, participants developed a working agenda and nominated two representatives from each state to serve on the National Platform for Women in Small Scale Fisheries. The agenda, as discussed, would be taken up at the national level. It would help improve visibility of women in small-scale fisheries, secure their rights and improve their participation in decision-making processes.
Full report is available: https://demo2.icsf.net/resources/wif-india-2022/
For more information about the workshop, please check: