With mind set on raising the number of females participating in the global seafaring profession, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the global maritime regulatory body, launched a global campaign aimed at encouraging more female to build career in seafaring and shipping business in general.
IMO, which doubles as a specialised organ of the United Nation’s came up with a theme “On Board with Gender Equality,” with special focus on empowering women in the maritime community, for the 2019 Day of the Seafarer celebration, held on 25 June. The IMO advised member-states to key into the theme by opening up their maritime sectors for more women to participate.
Globally, the IMO earmarks June 25 every year to be the Day of the Seafarer, an annual international event, coordinated by the IMO, and celebrated world over to honor the unique contribution made by seafarers from all over the world to international seaborne trade, the world economy and civil society as a whole.
Seafarers are persons employed by a shipowner to service on board a ship at sea. They take part in ship operation and maintenance especially in places like deck department, engineering department, steward department, and others.
Seafaring profession particularly, ship captains, Marine Engineers, Nautical Scientists, Marine Surveyors, Deck officers and Master Mariners, are mostly male dominated professions. This has created concerns in the minds of global maritime leaders, who believed that maritime business can be better harnessed for greater growth if more women are encouraged to participate in shipping business.
Available statistics show that only 2 percent of the total seafarers across the world are females and more disappointing was the fact that majority of this percentage are from the Philippines, a country presently dominating the world’s seafaring profession in huge numbers, raking in huge income and foreign exchange for the Philippine’s economy.
Coming home, out of the 6,039 seafarers on the Nigerian seafarers’ register, only 567 representing 9.3 percent were females, according to statistics from the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Also, data from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, shows that only 26 out of the total 250 students in the school registry, representing 10.4 percent of the total students in the Academy, are female.
For these obvious reasons, Nigeria through NIMASA started focusing on creating gender equality beginning with the celebration of the 2019 Day of the Seafarer that had Aisha Buhari, the First Lady, leading other dignitaries and stakeholders in the maritime community to localise the global campaign.
On its own part, the management of NIMASA promised to use deliberate steps designed to accommodate more women in the nation’s shipping business, to redress this abnormally.
Dakuku Peterside, director-general of NIMASA said the agency would look into creating more avenues through interventionist programmes and proper education for Nigerian female students to build career in maritime business.
Peterside said the Nigerian maritime sector cannot afford to exclude the women, who make up about 50 percent of the nation’s population.
According to him, NIMASA shall in response to the global concerns, begin to engage stakeholders in the sector to design measures and modalities for the engagement of more women in shipping activities and other areas within the maritime workforce.
He however called on men to support women, especially in maritime, “towards reaching their potential and navigating work place challenges.”
Contrary to the general perception, seafaring profession is not a career that is solely reserved for men, but one that is meant for all genders.
Prior to the Seafarers’ Day, NIMASA held a one-day sensitisation workshop in Lagos for over 400 Nigerian female students to showcase to them, the benefits of taking a career in seafaring.
Aisha Buhari, who commended NIMASA’s efforts geared towards promoting and encouraging women in the maritime sector, said such was in line with the President’s aspirations for the sector.
“Mr. President is desirous of seeing more women play active role in the maritime industry. This celebration focusing on women seafarers is, therefore, apt,” the First Lady said.
She however called on all government agencies, especially those in the maritime sector, to ensure the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5, which is aimed at attaining gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.
Meanwhile, Peterside said NIMASA would going forward, also begin to sensitise industry operators and players on the significance as well as economic importance of bridging gender inequality, and the need for men to support women towards reaching their potential.
“For us to have more women at sea and onshore, the men have a major role to play in terms of providing the needed support. However, NIMASA will continue to pursue policies and programmes that will accelerate gender equality and empowerment of women in the maritime sector.
For instance, in addition to the 304 female cadets NIMASA have trained in seafaring since the inception of the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP), Peterside said greater attention will now be given to the training of female seafarers in specialised courses and areas to enable them take up professional responsibilities in specialised vessels and offshore operations, and maritime sector generally.
He however added that placement of women on board vessels will be given high priority, with greater attention given to providing an enabling environment for female seafarers.
Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, President of the World Maritime University (WMU), who applauded Nigeria’s effort in encouraging more female professionals in the maritime industry, said Nigeria is one of WMU’s long-standing partners that have provided funds for WMU’s M.Sc. fellowships.
“Under the MoU with NIMASA, as well as the support provided by the Nigerian Ports Authority, today, we have 199 WMU alumni from Nigeria, of which 31 are women. About half of these Nigerian female graduates were funded by the government. The rest received funding from other sources and other WMU partners,” she said.
