Globally, relatively few data are available about women’s role in small-scale fisheries, despite their active participation as fishers, processors, traders and marketers. This calls for greater efforts by researchers, national fisheries agencies and global policymakers to collect and report separately on women’s and men’s contributions to this sector. “When we only collect data on men, we miss half the story. If we want to make informed decisions about our fisheries we need to find ways to count all the people involved,” says Dr. Danika Kleiber, a Research Fellow, working with WorldFish ...

Studies on masculinity and gender issues, and particularly on domestic violence in fishing communities, are rare in fisheries research literature which tends, rather, to focus on technical, biological, economic and governance aspects of the industry and the people in it. In some cases, social and health groups reach out to people in fishing communities in their efforts to overcome gender-based violence. ...

In a recent FAO report (A Review of Women’s Access to Fish in Small Scale Fisheries), Angela Lentisco and Robert Lee have gone beyond the typical portrayal of women as fish processors and marketers have reviewed and categorized three main ways in which women access fish in small scale fisheries. ...

From beginning to end, GAF5 participants shared the aspirations and frustrations of the long journey to gender equality, and the long way still to go. The greater commitments to gender equality in policies and by aquaculture and fisheries agencies are heartening developments. Of growing alarm, however, is the erosion of women’s positions in mainstream aquaculture and fisheries value chains and increasing difficulties in vanishing traditional resource systems. ...

Wishing all our readers and contributors a healthy, productive and happy 2016! Looking back on 2015, the Genderaquafish.org website continued to serve a large and very diverse range of people in 163 countries and territories in all regions. Our top 5 countries for readers were: India (2,973), USA (2,673), Philippines (798), Australia (607) and South Korea (537). Through these electronic means, we hope that more and more people are becoming aware of activity and progress in gender equality in aquaculture and fisheries. ...

The Secretariat for the Pacific Community (SPC), has just released its 25th Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin. Congratulations to the SPC, Bulletin Editors including current editor Dr Veikila Vuki, donors and supporters for this achievement. This issue starts with a message of support from Moses Amos, the new Director of SPC’s Fisheries, ...

On 27th December 2012, Dr M.C. Nandeesha, who initiated the first efforts to address gender in aquaculture and fisheries in Asia, passed away. We honor his memory and achievements and hope that his legacy will continue to grow through the gender efforts of the Asian Fisheries Society and other professional and grassroots groups. ...

Dr. Mudnakudu C. Nandeesha (1957-2012), who instigated many women/gender in aquaculture and fisheries initiatives, passed away on 27 December 2012. On the 4th anniversary of his passing, we pause to remember him and acknowledge his contributions on many fronts, including on gender awareness and action. ...

Getting gender into the fisheries and aquaculture agenda requires large and fundamental changes inside the organisations that support the sector, including the research institutes. Last year, the fisheries institutes of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), one of the world’s largest agricultural research systems, held a pioneering workshop to plan a future roadmap for their gender in fisheries work. ...

A recent paper: “Homestead pond polyculture can improve access to nutritious small fish” published in the journal Food Security1 investigates an aquaculture production system in Bangladesh which is tailored towards improving nutrition and is accessible to and can be managed by women. In Bangladesh, and many parts of rural south Asia, women’s movements outside the homestead are restricted and they spend much time at home taking care of children and other family members, food preparation and other household chores. ...

Gender norms maintain a hierarchy of power and privilege that emphasize a gender binary, reinforcing a systemic inequality that undermines women’s rights and limits women’s opportunities. Among the socio-cultural taboos shaping participation in and benefits from fisheries activities, gender-specific taboos are particularly significant. Taboos are unwritten laws based on societal values that are transmitted through socialization; they help define who and how various groups and individuals in the community have access to fishing and fish (Oloko et al. 2021). ...

I begin with expressing my heartfelt thankfulness to Prof. Josè Fernández Polanco for having provided me with the humble opportunity in the platform of Advanced Lessons in Fisheries and Aquaculture Economics, Second Edition, to offer my tribute to Prof. M. C. Nandeesha, who passed away on the Day 27th December, 2012. ...

Research agencies are very important social institutions in fisheries and aquaculture. Over the decades, their knowledge continues to grow and multiply, enriched through partnerships, outreach and synergies between existing and new ideas. The electronic information era creates new opportunities to make agency knowledge more accessible through creating institute repositories. In the last year, two major research agencies have made their publications available through new institute repositories. ...

A very welcome addition to the technical support for the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication – a handbook – has just been released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Called “Towards gender-equitable small-scale fisheries governance and development“, the handbook written by Nilanjana Biswas, of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), ...

The full details of the Objectives are given in the By-laws. Briefly, they are: 1. The GAFS general objectives are those of the Asian Fisheries Society as defined in the Society’s Constitution. 2. The specific objectives for the GAFS are: • To promote equitable effective interaction and cooperation among scientists/academics, technicians, fisheries officers and non- ...

There is compelling evidence that increased gender equity can make a significant contribution towards alleviating poverty and increasing food security. But past efforts to integrate gender into agricultural research and development practice have failed to address the inequalities that limit women’s access to agricultural inputs, markets, resources and advice. A Gender Transformative Approach (GTA) goes beyond just considering the symptoms of gender inequality, and addresses the social norms, attitudes, behaviors and social systems that underlie them. ...

Despite evidence of women’s contribution to the sustainability of fisheries worldwide, their roles in fisheries remain poorly understood and most often unrecognized altogether. The main hurdle in assessing women’s contribution is the lack of gender disaggregated data in fisheries, a well understood and nearly universal impediment to understanding women’s participation. Simply put, the majority of countries do not collect gendered data on fisheries participants ...

Taking a boat ride between islands in the Indian Sundarbans could be fun and enjoyable if you are there for tourism. It may not be very easy to be living in a very uncertain, harsh and difficult environment like this though. Mrs. Anwara Khatoon (name changed) says “It is very difficult surviving under these conditions – with my husband and elder son migrating to the city for a living, our small piece of land completely submerged under saline water and many other pressures, every day is a challenge”. ...

In preparation for GAF8 the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Section of the Asian Fisheries Society (GAFS) joined with the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish and the CGIAR GENDER Platform to call for proposals for awards to support the preparation and publication of quality, open access, research articles. This aligns with the dual aims to generate evidence to address gaps in data and knowledge, as well as giving greater visibility to gender research and analysis in fisheries and aquaculture. ...

Yemaya, the gender and fisheries newsletter of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has recently released its April 2014 issue. This issue, Yemaya has a special focus on the progress and shortcomings of the coverage of women’s equity strategies in the forthcoming Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication. Visit the ICSF website to download the whole issue, which contains the following articles. ...