Recent Submissions

  • Yemaya No.65, March 2022

    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), 2022-03)
    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has released the latest edition of Yemaya, its newsletter on gender and fisheries. The articles in this issue are drawn from the presentations and discussions at the webinar organized by GAFS, Women Work in Fisheries, Too! held on 29 November 2021. The webinar identified areas that respond to the inaccurate and inadequate portrayal of women’s work in Asian countries. Yemaya No. 65, dated March 2022, features articles from Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Philippines and Uganda, on decent work, small-scale fisheries and gender issues in the seafood industry. Yemaya No. 65 can be accessed at: https://www.icsf.net/yemaya-articles.php?id=9111
  • Yemaya No. 63, May 2021

    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), 2021-05)
    Yemaya No. 63, dated May 2021, features articles from US, The Netherlands, Myanmar, Senegal, and an article on women in fisheries and human rights. The article from the US by Linda Behnken argues that a growing coalition of small-scale, community-based fishers is calling for the recognition and protection of Alaska’s invaluable coastal fisheries during COVID-19. The article from the Netherlands by Cornelie Quist looks at the challenges facing women engaged in small-scale fishing and supplying fish through retailers and how they found new ways to directly reach consumers. The conversation between Miranda Bout and Cornelie Quist focuses on how they combined new product development with the use of social media to contact their customer base during the pandemic-induced disruption of traditional marketing chains. The article by Elena Finkbeiner, Juno Fitzpatrick and Whitney Yadao-Evans looks at recent media revelations and scientific research that have brought increased attention to human-rights violations and the myriad social issues facing fisheries, but with a disproportionate focus on labour-rights violations at sea and in industrial fishing operations. The systemic inequalities combined with the effects of COVID-19 exacerbated vulnerabilities of women to health risks, food and livelihood security. The article from Senegal by Aby Dia from Lumière Synergie pour le Développement (LSD), in collaboration with WoMin African Alliance, South Africa, narrates the story of traditional women fish processors from the Bargny who have been, for more than a decade, struggling against development projects that jeopardise their environment, health and livelihoods. In order to preserve their livelihoods, women processors in Senegal have come together to oppose the Tosyali steel project. The European Network of Women in Fisheries and Aquaculture in Europe (AKTEA) urges the Office of the Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries to integrate gender into all aspects of European fishing policy. The Profile column looks at how Linda Behnken became a fisher in Alaska and how fishing has shaped her individuality and work. Natalie Sattler says that fishing for halibut, sablefish and salmon from the sparkling waters of the Pacific along with her children and at the same time passion for working with the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association and the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust is an immense challenge.
  • Yemaya No. 64, November 2021

    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), 2021-11)
    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has released the latest edition of Yemaya, its newsletter on gender and fisheries. Yemaya No. 64, dated November 2021, features articles from Sri Lanka, The Gambia, Gender dialogue took place in Central America, issues of gender seafood industry, meditative reflection on gender equity and social justice from India, and posters released on World fisheries day from Brazil, Ghana, The Netherlands, and Thailand.
  • Profile: adding value to fish: Lovin Kobusingye is not just a successful woman entrepreneur in Uganda but an influential voice in shaping pan-African fisheries policies

    Kasozi, Nasser (2020)
    Yemaya
    Lovin Kobusingye is a well-known young woman fish entrepreneur working in Central Uganda’s Wakiso District. For over eight years, she, along with her two partners and over a thousand other fish farmers, has worked on fish processing and value addition. At the same time, she has persistently lobbied the government to support women-led entrepreneurship through an enabling policy framework designed to protect women in fisheries activities both in Uganda and, at a higher level, throughout Africa.
  • Milestones: pulled backward

    Lakshmi, Ahana (2020)
    Yemaya
    The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SDG 5. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. How has progress towards this end been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic? A new report, the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020, released in July by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) presents an overview of progress towards the SDGs before the pandemic started, but it also looks at some of the devastating initial impacts of COVID-19 on specific goals and targets. We focus here on SDG 5: Gender equality and empower all women and girls.
  • What’s new, webby?: covering COVID-19

    Roshan, Manas (2020)
    Yemaya
    Since its outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, COVID-19 has spread to 202 countries and territories, leading to 14,508,892 confirmed cases and 606,206 deaths as on 20 July, 2020. ICSF SAMUDRA and DC daily news alerts have tracked the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on fisheries value chains since the early stages of the pandemic. Launched in May, ICSF’s new website (https://covid.icsf.net) has drawn on these news alerts and information from ICSF’s networks of members and partners to map the effects of lockdown restrictions, closure of markets and restaurants, and changes in demand and supply of fish and fish products around the world.
  • Brazil: fishing for crustaceans

    Ferreira, Beatriz Mesquita Pedrosa (2020)
    Yemaya
    This photo-essay depicts the practice of aratu fishing carried out by women in the mangroves of northeastern Brazil. Aratu (Goniopsis cruentata) are small, reddish crustaceans that live on the branches of mangroves. They are processed and sold, the sweetness of the meat making them a prized delicacy. Aratu fishing is carried out mostly by women, for whom it is a source of income, allowing them to get by without formal employment, and offering a certain freedom in their lives. Unlike the crab, the aratu is a fast breeder but both types of crustaceans have their own pros and cons. “If aratu bred like crab, there wouldn’t be much to pick since there are a lot of people fishing. We’re lucky that it reproduces fast. Crab is less labour intensive and fetches more money. Aratu has to be picked before it is sold; crab doesn’t need any such processing”
  • Mexico: pandemic outcomes

    López-Ercilla, Inés; Torre, Jorge; Solano, Neyra; Fernández, Francisco (2020)
    Yemaya
    Women in the small scale fishing sector in Mexico are key drivers ensuring food security and community wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have surpassed all imaginable scenarios. The global crisis moves fast and changes quickly, hence forcing people to adapt and navigate through uncertainty as never before. Every generation faces impacts that shake their minds and force them to leave their comfort zone. This is an impact for a lifetime, for current and new generations. Other shocks have posed risks to fisheries before; some of them being global (climate change), regional (overfishing) or even local (illegal fishing, poverty, poor fishing management tools, lack of enforcement), to name only a few. However, the impact of the current pandemic greatly eclipses these in terms of scale and outcome.
  • Brazil: reaching out, holding hands

    França, Lorena; Silva, Luclécia Cristina Morais da; Ferreira, Beatriz Mesquita Pedrosa (2020)
    Yemaya
    The President of the Association of Indigenous Communities of the Middle Negro River (ACIMRN), Sandra Gomes, speaks about the challenges indigenous communities face due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Negro River in the Amazon region is the largest black water river in the world. Its basin area of approximately 750,000 sq. km accounts for seven percent of the total area of the Amazon basin, and its length from pre-Andean Colombia to its mouth, is approximately 1,700 km, making it the Amazon’s largest tributary.
  • Gender: small-scale fisheries and food security

    Franz, Nicole (2020)
    Yemaya
    A brief overview of relevant global findings and processes on the contributions of small-scale fisheries and rights to food and nutrition security, with a focus on the FAO
  • Indonesia: yielding ground

    Fitriana, Ria; Kurupat, Maria (2020)
    Yemaya
    Changing land use patterns threaten the livelihood of female crab collectors in Merauke, Papua, Indonesia
  • Indonesia: coping with COVID

    Adhuri, Dedi Supriadi (2020)
    Yemaya
  • Yemaya Bulletin de l'ICSF sur les Questions de Genre dans la Peche, Número 61, agosto de 2020

    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), 2020)
    Yemaya
    L’ICSF vient également de publier le no 61 du bulletin YEMAYA sur les questions de genre dans la pêche: Les articles viennent du Brésil, du Costa Rica, de la France, de l’Inde, de l’Indonésie, du Mexique, du Sénégal. L’éditorial traite de pêches artisanales et sécurité alimentaire. Et une série de photos illustre la pêche au petit crabe Aratu dans les mangroves brésiliennes.
  • Yemaya No.62, December 2020

    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), 2020)
    Yemaya
    The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has released the latest edition of Yemaya, its newsletter on gender and fisheries.Yemaya No. 62, dated December 2020, features articles from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Ghana, Mexco and the conversation between Meryl Williams, Danika Klieber and Kate Bevitt.The article from Bangladesh by Md. Mujibul Haque Munir reveals that women in Bangladesh’s coastal fishing continue to remain largely unrecognized and that urgent steps are needed to rectify this situation.The article from Myanmar by Angela Lentisco looks at the challenge of FAO’s FishAdapt project in strengthening the adaptive capacity and resilience of fisheries -and aquaculture dependent livelihoods and limited opportunity to work as wage labour in the commercial fishing business.The article from Ghana by Naana Nkansah Agyekum looks at the gradual transformation of the ahotor oven which represents an improvement on the widely used chorkor smoke. The ahotor oven is energy efficient and helps women fish processors reduce the quantity of firewood in smoking fish.The conversation between Kate Bevitt, Danika Kleiber and Meryl Williams focuses on the collaborative study, Illuminating Hidden Harvests. The conversation highlights the under recognition and under reporting of women’s work.
  • France: fishing in troubled waters

    Yhuel-Bertin, Emmanuelle; Sann, Danièle Le (2020)
    Yemaya
    The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on a small-scale fishing in Lorient is vividly captured in the pages of a diary maintained by a gillnetter skipper’s spouse. In March 2020, Emmanuelle Yheul-Bertin, wife of a gillnet skipper who runs a 13-metre gillnetter vessel with four men on board, began recording the experiences of skipper and crew during the COVID-19 lockdown. Her diary covers the period from mid-March to early May. The first entry signals a gathering cloud of anxieties. “The media is reporting lockdown restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID,” writes Emmanuelle, “but the artisanal fishery in Lorient is yet to recover from the impact of the winter’s numerous storms.”
  • Costa Rica: returning to land and sea

    Toro, María Suárez (2020)
    Yemaya
    The harsh economic impact of the ongoing pandemic-related lockdown has spurred fisherwomen in Costa Rica to return to their traditional sources of livelihood. Although there have been very few COVID-19 cases in the area, the suspension of tourism with the COVID -19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on the southern Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Until recently, tourism was the mainstay of the local economy in the coastal communities of Puerto Viejo, Cahuita, Manzanillo and Cocles. However, the crisis has brought about a re-activation of traditional ancestral livelihoods where fishermen and women take to the sea in boats and kayaks bringing food to their families and communities.
  • France: a resolute mussel farmer

    Lallouët-Geffroy, Julie (2020)
    Yemaya
    Amélie Dennebouy has challenged gender stereotypes to become a successful mussel entrepreneur in Pénestin, France. “ We don’t employ women!” Just how many times Amélie Dennebouy, a mussel farm worker, heard that phrase since she began working in the sector at age 17, it would be impossible to say. “Ten years ago, I realised that it would be difficult to find employment in the production segment because I am a woman,” says Amélie. Stories flood her mind: managers laughing at her when she handed in an application for work as a production worker, pushing her to the sales department instead; the crude questioning of some: “Have you passed under the desk?”
  • From the Editor, Yemaya, No.61, August 2020

    International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) (2020)
    Yemaya
    According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 (SOFI 2020) released in July amidst the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people affected by hunger is steadily rising globally. People with higher risk of food insecurity include those with the lowest levels of income and education, the unemployed, those with health problem, those living in rural areas, and those separated or divorced. The report, which carries recent and authoritative estimates of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition around the world, also revealed disturbing gender specific aspects of hunger: moderate to severe food insecurity is more prevalent among women than men; there is a growing gender gap in accessing food; and the most disadvantaged and vulnerable are often adolescents, women and children living in the poorest households in rural areas but also urban areas. When viewed in the context of a pandemic induced global economic crisis, these findings have serious implications for the lives of women in the small-scale fisheries.

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