In line with the theme of the World Maritime Day 2019, which is “Empowering Women in the Maritime Community”, the World Maritime University (WMU), has fixed April 4 to 5, 2019 for its third International Women’s Conference.
The WMU said that the conference is to address the gender gap in the maritime, ports, fishing and related businesses.
According to the university, “the aim of the conference is to identify opportunities to encourage women to pursue careers in the maritime and ocean sectors, and to call for action from maritime and other stakeholders in support of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular Goal 5 related to gender equality, as a cross-cutting theme”.
It also noted that, “today, the maritime and related industries continue to be one of the most male dominated sectors, including seafarers, fishermen, port operators, surveyors, port state control officers and government officials”
“The under-representation of women in the maritime industry has not significantly changed over the past 25 years. In 1992, the number of women seafarers was estimated as one to two percent of the total seafaring workforce, while the latest 2015 manpower report from BIMCO/ICS indicates that only one percent of seafarers are women. In seafood harvesting, the numbers and employment conditions of women are usually well behind that of men”.
“It added that, “stereotyping and discrimination against maritime women persist. They affect working conditions, equal access to education and training as well as career opportunities. Gender specific data is scarce. Issues such as women's health gain little attention and good practices regarding the empowerment of women remain barely visible”.
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