Women play a key role in fisheries, and particularly in small scale fisheries, in all the countries with which the European Union (EU) has signed a Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA), either in Africa, Indian Ocean, or the Pacific. By making fish products a source of proteins, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals available at affordable cost to the population, including the poorest and those living far from the coasts, women working in artisanal fisheries sector contribute significantly to food security.
However, the traditional perception that women in fisheries are mainly active in the processing and selling of fish, whilst men focus on the at sea operations has influenced negotiations on the impacts of EU fishing agreements on African fishing communities. Since access to resources was the subject matter, the discussion focused on avoiding interactions at sea between EU industrial vessels and local artisanal fishermen. Even when the artisanal fishing sector attended fishing agreements negotiations, the representatives were fishermen and women organisations were nowhere to be seen at the bargaining table.
The fact that women issues have been, and are still, largely overlooked when negotiating a fishing agreement also reflects the general lack of awareness and data on their actual contribution to the sector. In the ex-post and ex-ante evaluations of SFPAs, which provide a basis for negotiation, data on women’s work in the fish value chain are seldom mentioned. Consequently, during the discussions, very little attention has been given to how women activities can be protected and supported.
However, in the last years, African women in fisheries voices have been increasingly heard in discussions on fisheries management. At the occasion of the annual International Women Day celebrations organized by the African Confederation of professional artisanal fisheries organisations (CAOPA), they underlined that: Women in the sector are directly affected by poor fisheries resource management [ ]. We are actors of sustainable resource management, just like fishermen[…]. We ask our States to commit resolutely to the sustainable and transparent management of our fisheries resources, to give priority access to those who contribute to the food security of our populations and to involve both men and women from the artisanal fisheries sector in this management.
Mismanagement, leading to over-exploitation of resources, has an immediate impact on women in fisheries livelihoods: the lack of access to fish to process and sell. In countries like Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea Bissau, women fish processors have difficulties accessing raw material as, in the last decade, maritime artisanal fisheries landings have constantly decreased. Indeed, artisanal fishers face many challenges such as trawlers fishing illegally in the coastal zone and destroying their nets and unsustainable fishing methods by industrial boats, such as pair trawling, and by some artisanal pirogues.
In Senegal and The Gambia, women have denounced the competition they face from foreign owned fishmeal plants which process vast quantities of sardinella into fishmeal and fishoil for exports. In Liberia, it was women fish processors that sounded the alarm bell after a government initiative to reduce the artisanal fishing zone from 6 Nautical Miles (NM) to 3 NM. Women also consistently highlight their deplorable working conditions: in the smoke with obsolete equipment with no access to running water, electricity or sanitation.
Women organisations from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia, Liberia have pointed these issues to their governments, as well as to the EU, as the partner in these Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement’. In their view, supporting women in the African artisanal fishing sector through SFPAs will strengthen coastal communities, and therefore contribute to the establishment of sustainable fisheries.