Women fishers unrecognized around the Arctic
Fishing industry leaves women out of decision-making
AKUREYRI, Iceland — Women fish with their families and also take care of the household while men go out on fishing boats, but their efforts aren’t recognized, and they’re left out of the fishing industry from top to bottom, from Nunavut to Norway, concludes an international project that looked at women’s involvement in fisheries.
“If women had decision-making power, it would be a lot more harmonious,” reflected one woman from Pangnirtung who is quoted in the project’s final report, which was submitted to the Arctic Council this week in Reykjavik.
In Nunavut, the research team, which included aspiring fisher Leesee Papatsie, found women have little decision-making power in today’s fisheries, although they are often left paying the bills for fuel and equipment.
Women fish, but their formal economic involvement in Nunavut’s fisheries, that is, money and jobs, comes mainly as employees at Pangnirtung’s fish plant, where the majority of processing workers are female.
Lack of access to daycare, education and other resources mean few women have other jobs in the fishing industry, says the report.
The same situation holds true in Greenland, Norway and Iceland where women’s efforts are also generally unrecognized.
“Women are not fit to be fishers,” one Norwegian person interviewed for the project said.
“Their ground crew efforts are to a large extent kept out of the economic system by lack of formal recognition,” says the report.
In the Faroe Islands, which is dominated by the local fishing industry, a government official maintained “there are no women involved” in the fisheries.
The report calls for:
a fisheries policy that takes women into account;
recognition of women’s contribution to fisheries;
more training and other efforts to increase women’s involvement;
more partnerships and new opportunities that include women;
more gender equality in groups such as hunting and trapping associations and departments that deal with fisheries;
respect for the rights and traditions of indigenous fishers.
The idea for this project, undertaken by the Arctic Council and, in Canada, by the national Inuit women’s association, Pauktuutit, came out of a circumpolar women’s conference held three years ago in northern Finland.
Several Arctic Council nations then developed their own national projects.
Contributors to Canada’s portion of the project included federal and territorial governments, foundations, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, the Baffin Fisheries Coalition and the Kakivak Association.
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