Abstract:
Women in fishing communities play multidimensional roles. Women
pervade fisheries and their roles were identified as workers in both fisheries,
markets, processing plants and non-fishery, mothers who give birth to
successors, as caregivers of the family, as connecting agents of social
networks, as representatives of local culture, as community workers and
governors. The main aim of this study is to identify and measure women’s
involvement in global fishery value chains and investigating their activity,
access and control profiles in fishery value chains in selected destinations in
Asia, Africa and Latin America. Primary data were obtained from fisheries
and aquaculture operations in Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia,
Sri Lanka, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Honduras. Participant observation with
experienced investigators, focus group discussion and gender resources
maps were the principal data collection tools. Women play non-significant
roles in capture fishery production and totally depend on religion and culture
while their contribution in aquaculture production is great. Women’s role in
fish marketing, mainly handling, grading, packing and retailing is very
important for timely distribution of the catch. Female roles were centred on
household activities which take them away from direct income generation
and access to the capital assets. Less educated, resource poor women are
concentrated in the low value end of the value chains while the high value
end of the value chains is mainly handled by the resource rich males and
limited number of educated, resourced owned females. Women’s
engagement is less in modern value chains with few nodes than the traditional complex and lengthier value chains. The departure of women
from fisheries will adversely interfere with existence of the local fishing
culture and industry.
