Propelling Blue Craft by Professor Oscar Amarasinghe

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Disguised role of women in Blue Economic Growth

Chancellor / Ocean University of Sri Lanka & President / Sri Lanka Forum for Small Scale Fisheries (SLFSSF)

Small, developing island states like Sri Lanka are gradually moving from a Green Economy Focus to Blue Economy Focus, aiming at exploiting ocean resources for employment creation, earning incomes, strengthening the economy and improving the wellbeing of the people. During 20-22 June 2012, at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) held in Rio de Janeiro, coastal states requested an extension of the  Green Economy to encompass the Blue Sector, due to their small resource base which was limiting further expansion of their economies.

Today, many coastal states are placing high emphasis on Blue Economic growth, which is defined by the World Bank as “all economic activities, related to oceans, seas and coasts, which cover a wide range of interlinked established and emerging sectors”. On top of the traditional ocean activities such as fisheries, tourism and maritime transport, Blue Economy entails emerging industries including renewable energy, aquaculture, seabed extractive activities and marine biotechnology and bioprospecting.

Although it is popularly believed that Blue Economic Development is new to Sri Lanka, the origins of Blue Economic Growth can be traced back to the late 1950’s when the country introduced motorised craft and new fishing gear; the “Blue Revolution”. During the pre-Blue Revolution era, fishing was mainly carried out by artisanal craft operating in near shore areas to a lesser extent, and by beachseines (madel) which was the major technique of fishing. The seine nets were laid in nearshore waters and hauled from the beach. During the immediate post-war period, nearly 90% of the fish catch came from beachseines. Most of the fishing activities were mainly confined to inshore waters, to a distance of about 3 km from the coast. In the late 1950s, the whole fisheries sector was subject to a revolutionary change that came about as a three-pronged strategy: a. introduction of motorised craft (offshore craft with inboard engine and small fiberglass boats with outboard motor); b. motorisation of traditional craft (by fixing an outboard motor to the aft or side of artisanal craft) and c. introduction of new fishing gear (nylon nets and hooked lines and new fishing methods).

This marks the onset of Bue Economic Growth process in Sri Lanka.

The Blue ECONOMIC GROWTH PROCESS (in fisheries).

Generally known as the Blue Revolution, the technological change in fisheries in the 1960s and 1970s led to a movement of fishing loci away from the coast and fishers started exploiting the offshore waters. Fish catches increased to significantly high levels and fishing incomes were on the rise unremittingly. The dream of fishers was to acquire an offshore craft. This trend continued into the 1980s, by the end of which the offshore craft was further improved by the boatyards of the country to construct the present day multi day craft with inbuilt ice compartment, water tank, cabin for the crew, GPS, etc. These craft started to venture into deeper areas of Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone; EEZ (which extend to 200 nautical miles from the coast) and even beyond. In searching for better resources, some of these fishers who were fishing illegally in the waters of other countries were arrested and detained in prisons of foreign countries for long periods of time. Today, more than 1,200 of these craft fish in high seas targeting tuna and other large fish species, for export, while others (about 4,300 crafts) filch upto the edge of the EEZ. These crafts are engaged in lengthy fishing trips of one to several weeks of duration.

Changing role of women in the fisheries sector

A major characteristic of Sri Lanka’s blue growth in respect of fisheries is that the new technology did not compete with the traditional/artisanal technology, displacing the fishers operating such non-motorised vessels. In fact, the new motorised craft enabled the fishers to move away from the coast into deeper waters which were yet to be exploited. About 55,000 of Sri Lanka’s fishing fleet of 60,000 vessels still engage in one day fishing trips up to a maximum distance of 24 nautical miles (edge of the Contiguous Zone). The rest consists of nearly 5,000 multiday crafts. Obviously, Sri Lanka’s Blue Economic Growth (in respect of fisheries) has principally caused an expansion of the coastal fleet, especially the small fiberglass boat with outboard motor operating in near shore waters, and deep sea fishing which commenced in early 1990s is gathering momentum recording a high rate of increase in multi day crafts since the beginning of this millenium.

The new fishing technology also demanded that fishers spend more and more time in fishing-related activities such as net mending, gear preparation, craft repair and engine repair work, search for purchased inputs, etc. All this meant a heavy burden on women in taking care of household and social onuses. Interestingly, women willingly take up these challenges because the fishing incomes are several fold high and they enjoy a better living standard than their fellow fishers who still operate artisanal crafts in nearshore waters. Needless to highlight that, the issue with fishing incomes is more about their fluctuations than about the absolute value, and along with uncertainties of the duration of fishing trips (uncertainty of the boats returning on a particular day), the women are confronted with a high risk of falling into financial crises when incomes fall short of subsistence and when the breadwinner is absent for long periods of time. Thus, many women fisher folk are engaged in earning supplementary incomes from various activities such as rope making, fish drying, selling prepared food items, sewing and selling garments, etc. They are also involved in various other risk insurance mechanisms such as revolving credit schemes like ‘seettu’ and spending on activities that would strengthen inter-family ties. Women also resort to intra-family adjustment strategies when they are confronted with income shortfalls. Here household resources are distributed in favour of the male members in the household (who are the breadwinners) and the burden of consumption shortfalls are mostly borne by the female members in the household (tightening of the belt by only the female members).

Due to the absence of husbands in taking care of household affairs, the women are burdened with additional responsibilities such as attending to children’s education, taking them to private classes, maintaining and improving their discipline, dealing with public officials, meeting social obligations, participating in community affairs, etc. In the daily routine chart of a housewife in the deep sea sector, there is hardly any space for her own pleasures. While feeling that they are being taxed heavily by men who are away on long fishing trips, the majority of women want their husbands to continue with motorised fishing and offshore fishing due to two major reasons. First, motorised fishing earns high average incomes. Second, women enjoy a high freedom of choice when the husband’s are absent from home- they seem to enjoy taking part in community and social affairs. Since men are absent from homes for long periods of time, almost all major decisions at home are made by women and almost all social and community obligations are met by women. Some of the fisheries cooperatives in the south of the country are mainly run by women. Intra-household gender relations too have changed in favour of women. With women’s engagement in income generating activities and their important contribution towards community and social development activities, their ‘fall back position’ (bargaining position) has improved. Women fisherfolk are compelled to be alert and knowledgeable about all what is happening around them, while the men are left to fight the ocean.

However, previous studies carried out by the author revealed two specific problems confronted by women in the deep sea fisheries sector. Long absence of fathers from home has made life more difficult for mothers in maintaining discipline among boys. The second problem is the arrest of multi day boat fishermen for poaching and detained in foreign countries for very long periods. The affected families, especially the mothers, may have to undergo tremendous hardships during such periods and other than the members of the fishing community, apparently no other regular source of help is available to them.

 

Fish Processing and gender

One of the traditional household activities of women fisher folk in Sri Lanka has been processing of fish into dried fish, Maldive fish and salted fish, of which the two former are practiced more commonly. Dried fish processing and small-scale trading form the major employment activity in coastal villages for women fisher folk in earning supplementary incomes. In fact, for many fishing villages, where dried fish processing is widely practised, it has become a way of life for the women, indicating its high social value within the fishing communities. as a means of smoothening inter-temporal fluctuations of daily fishing incomes; income smoothing. Although women employment in fishing communities is not a common phenomenon in the Buddhist communities in the south, they are involved to a great extent in fish marketing and other beach based activities in other parts of the country, as in the case of the western coastal region of the country. The advantage of women engagement in household level fish processing activities is that it minimises the possibility of any negligence of household chores, while assisting the household to make the ends meet.

Whilst recognising the responsibilities and burdens which women shoulder in navigating the ‘blue craft’, it needs to be highlighted that women are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to fulfill thiese responsibilities. In fact, the role of women has often been undermined in fisheries, which is a male dominant industry. Their access to credit, information and training opportunities is weak, and very little efforts have been made to improve women’s access to such financial, physical and human capital. Moreover, engagement in fish drying at the household level may not have been the choice of employment by women, but they are forced to do it because it is an activity that their men would approve of (because they stay at home). Regrettably, unregulated expansion of the growth process is now causing a concentration of the fish processing trade in the hands of private commercial enterprises, in which women and men work as labourers; the resource owners converted to labourers, where women are paid less than men for the same task performed.

Sri Lankan women are quite educated with a literacy rate above 92%, and as effective agents in propelling the blue craft and coping with diverse vulnerabilities in fisheries. What is required is to empower women, so that they will enjoy decision making power on their own, have access to information and resources for taking proper decisions, have a range of options from which to make choices, have positive thinking on the ability to make changes involved in the growth process, etc. By managing the household, taking care of children and aging parents, meeting social obligations, earning supplementary incomes to smooth consumption, women definitely play multiple roles in the process of Blue Economic Growth.

EMPOWERING WOMEN

Evidently, two factors have been primarily responsible for reaping benefits (high fishing incomes, high foreign exchange earnings from exports, strengthening the economy and improving the wellbeing of the people) from the process of Blue Economic Growth in the sphere of fisheries. The Blue Revolution that took place in the 1960s and 1970s, made an exceptional contribution towards the expansion of the offshore sector and the use of modern fishing methods. Equally important has been the role of women in propelling this growth process by undertaking increasingly more and more household and social responsibilities and managing diverse fishing-related risks by earning supplementary incomes. For them to perform these new roles in the future, they need to be educated, trained and empowered. It will help women to gain control over their own lives. It fosters power in them, for use in meeting the wellbeing aspirations of them and their community. Women empowerment is also one of the Millenium Development Goals of the UN (MDG 3), and is also included in Sustainable Development Goals, under gender equality (SDG 5). Article 7.2 of FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small Scale Fisheries states, “All parties should recognize the role women often play in the post-harvest subsector and support improvements to facilitate women’s participation in such work. States should ensure that amenities and services appropriate for women are available as required in order to enable women to retain and enhance their livelihoods in the post-harvest subsector”.

Evidence from country wide consultations held in 2018-2019 (by author and his team) points to a number of measures that need to be adopted to ensure that women continue to propel the Blue Craft to secure sustainable Blue Economic Growth, while meeting their wellbeing aspirations.These include, building awareness among members of fishing communities (especially men) about the importance of women employment for family welfare (aiming at attitudinal changes); introducing technological innovation in fish processing and, train and build capacities of women to undertake them; organising women into groups (cooperatives / savings groups) aiming at increasing their bargaining power vis-à-vis outsiders, especially merchants; building market links to sell their produce and to receive a fair price; providing credit to fisher women entrepreneurs or their organisations at concessionary rates of interest; removing wage discrepancies, where men are paid a higher wage than women for the same task, and ensuring fair representation of women (about 25%) in community institutions (such as fisheries cooperatives.

“If you educate and train a man you uplift a person, but if you educate and train a woman you uplift a family.” (An African proverb).

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Disclaimer: Propelling Blue Craft by Professor Oscar Amarasinghe - Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Latheefarook.com point-of-view

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