Editorial Comment: We wish all our visitors to this site a very prosperous 2015. Robert Lindley starts our year with thoughts and lessons learned about the critical role of women in our industry. The Asian Development Bank has mandated a 30% inclusion rate for women in loan projects at every level from project management in government agencies to work in the field. We find that if women are fully engaged and supported in agriculture and agribusiness the work goes better and the profits are higher. Lindley makes the key point that women are usually already very busy; giving them more work may NOT be the right answer; neither may the answer be directly related to the given sector. We find it a general principle that development projects that make life easier for both sexes have an impact - projects that try to be clever to impress other consultants and the donor agencies seldom do.
 |
| Aweil, South Sudan |
The role of many women in fisheries, is usually that
of gatherer of sedentary organisms on the shoreline, or in processing and
marketing. Women very seldom “go
fishing” in the generally understood sense of the word, since this activity is
seen in almost every society as men’s work, and indeed in many societies there
is a taboo against women on fishing boats, particularly those that go out far
to sea or onto large lakes. Simple gears
in local shallow water is about as far as “fishing” goes for women.
This is very similar to the traditional
role of women in hunter gatherer societies, where the women gather and glean
from plants and slow moving animals on land, and process the products of this
activity and anything their husbands can hunt.
This enables the women to bring up children at the same time as
contributing to the household food inputs, since even very young children can
accompany their mother, either carried or by foot, whilst gathering or
processing food[1]. This role is ingrained, both in traditional
and modern communities, and it is unlikely that there will be much change in
the immediate future.
 |
| Dried fish market, Panyimur, Uganda |
This is not to say that the processing and
marketing role is not important nor lucrative.
In some West African fishing communities societies the women process the
catch, do the marketing, and control all the income; making them very powerful
and the key to successful fishing operations that provide smoke dried fish deep
into the West African interior. The
women are rich, influential, money savvy, control household expenditure and are
much held in awe by their husbands and male relatives, who have to made do with
what beer money is permitted them by the matriarchs between fishing trips.
What is however often misunderstood about
the women in fishing communities [Editor: indeed in ALL communities!!] is that their lives are generally already very
busy. They process the catch bought in
by their husbands, gather and glean, maintain the household and look after the
children, cook the food and undertake all the other domestic duties
expected. Without the benefit of
electric gadgets to simplify many of these tasks, such as laundry, water
collection, collecting firewood, cleaning and cooking, as well as their
fisheries activities such as processing or marketing, there is little time left
for additional activities.
 |
| Fish factory, Aden, Yemen. Note the dress code |
Liberating women in fishing communities
from drudgery or transforming their lives is not going to be achieved by adding
activities to the list of things they have to do every day, as is so often
proposed.
Making a few
baskets or “fishy” trinkets for sale in the urban centres, so often proposed by
well meaning development artists, is
hardly going to have any effect. What
may have a great effect is improving the existing infrastructure so that what
they already do will be made easier or more profitable.
This may be as simple as providing a clean
water supply so that women do not have to spend hours fetching water, building
a road to improve marketing opportunities or connecting a village to the
electrical grid so as to “lengthen the day”.
Not exactly fishy solutions, but solutions that improves the lives of
the women in fishing communities.
The so called “liberation” of women in
western societies has mostly been effected by
a) the control of fertility being placed in the hands of women (through
the contraceptive pill and other such devices) and
 |
| These women run the fish market in Valencia, Spain. Bright, modern and clean |
b) the use of electrical gadgets and piped water to reduce the workload
at home and enable women time to do other things, like get a paid job. Washing machines wash and dry the clothes removing
the need for “wash day”, and indeed disposable nappies reduce the need for much
washing if children are in the house; vacuum cleaners reduce the time needed to
clean the house, dishwashers wash the dishes, lights make the day 24 hours
long, public transport reduces travelling time to the shops. Electric or gas stoves heat up immediately
and are easy to clean, as opposed to charcoal or wood stoves, which are dirty,
expensive and slow. Water comes out of a
tap not a pump several hundred metres away.
Convenience foods, for all their nutritional shortcomings, reduce the
time needed to prepare the families’ meals.
All this is driven by technology for convenience and time saving, and
much is aimed directly at traditionally women’s work.
A rare example of a simple fisheries development
introduction that has impacted positively on women in fishing communities is
the introduction of improved smoking kilns, which has enabled women in
countries such as Malawi, where the women have always smoked fish, to reduce
the amount of firewood they use, making fish processing more profitable and
less environmentally damaging.
A good example of the way modern non
fisheries technology can benefit women in fishing communities is the
introduction of mobile phones in rural areas, usually done by private companies
seeking profits. This has had a significant
effect on fish marketing and processing.
Firewood can be ordered from suppliers, ice supplies ordered, transport
to take fish to market hired and casual labour obtained, all at the price of
phone call, from the fishing village, without the need to spend hours
travelling about. Fish traders also can
inform when they will be visiting to purchase fish, and check with retail
outlets and customers as to likely demand; this greatly reduces wastage
throughout the supply chain. Improved
communications through mobile phones has immensely benefited women in many
communities (not only fishing ones) all over the world. The possibilities of extending the benefits
of improved communications on fishing communities have hardly been explored in
most regions, though some fish cooperatives have begun to distribute market
information. Development Agencies, as
usual, are miles behind the commercial companies and fish traders in exploiting
these kinds of hi-tech developments.
 |
| Female and child labour in South Sudan |
The lesson to take away from this is that
traditional roles will persist in most conservative fishing communities, but by
building on the strengths that already exist, improving and simplifying tasks
already being undertaken, or providing services to make tasks more efficient,
it is possible to make a very big difference relatively quickly. Although the women are in fishing communities
the way to transform their lives may not be directly related to the fish from
which they rely on for income and food.
[1] Recent research shows that shopping serves much the same function
in modern society, in that it also is the obtaining of food, is done at a
leisurely pace, and can also be done with the kids in tow !
Robert Lindley is Senior Managing Partner for FoodWorks responsible for Fishery. He is currently leading our team on the Comprehensive Agricultural Management Plan project in South Sudan.
