The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women, Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, today launched a new report by UN Women during IORA’s 20th Council of Ministers meeting. The report provides new insights into women’s participation in fisheries and aquaculture in the Indian Ocean region, and compelling recommendations to promote gender equality in this area.
Women constitute nearly half of those employed in fisheries globally. Yet, fisheries remains a traditionally male-dominated sector where women’s contributions are greatly devalued. Further, women’s work in fisheries and aquaculture often lacks formal recognition, and women are vastly underrepresented in policy and decision-making.
The new report Women’s economic empowerment in fisheries in the blue economy of the Indian Ocean Rim: A baseline report examines the roles of women in fisheries and aquaculture in IORA Member States, and the challenges and opportunities for their economic empowerment. The report was prepared and released by UN Women, in partnership with the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) with the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
In addition to providing baseline data for the region, the report provides a set of recommendations for policymakers, the private sector, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders, to address gender equality issues in the following areas, among others: employment and regulation; occupational segregation and gender wage gaps; social security; unpaid care work; climate change; and women’s organizations, collectives, and leadership.
The report also includes country profiles for each IORA Member State that collate a wide range of information on fisheries and aquaculture, with a focus on women’s engagement in the sector.
This report adds to literature focused on women’s empowerment specifically in the Indian Ocean Rim region, such as UN Women’s baseline report Enabling Women’s Contributions to the Indian Ocean Rim Economies (2015), available here, and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) report A Blue Economy for Women’s Economic Empowerment (2019), available here. Further research is forthcoming, conducted by UN Women as part of the three-year Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Indian ocean Rim project, supported by the Government of Australia.
For more information about the report or IORA’s work on women’s economic empowerment, contact hq@iora.int.
More information on IORA’s work on Women’s Economic Empowerment is available here.
More information on IORA’s work on the Blue Economy is available here.
More information on IORA’s work on Fisheries Management is available here.
More information on IORA’s 20th Council of Ministers meeting is available here.
