The Directorate General of Shipping has asked the maritime sector, mainly the shipping industry, to recruit more women and provide them job opportunities in this vast sector.
“There is a need to attract more women into the shipping industry. Globally, around 2% women are in the maritime industry and in India it is less than 1%,” Amitabh Kumar, Director General of Shipping, said at a function recently organised by SHM Shipcare, a leading manufacturer of safety & survival systems for Indian Navy, merchant navy and the oil & gas sector.
Providing support
Stressing the need for increasing participation of women seafarers in maritime trade, he said, “Our first strategy should be to encourage women to join maritime industry. Then get them to training institutes and retain them by providing on-the-job training. These seafarers should be supported during breaks in their career like maternity by providing them with alternative career options like ship managers, lawyers or recruiters.”
He said in the 1990s, women’s participation in overall employment was 40%, which went down to 26% in 2017 and is now further decreasing. “If the workforce is diverse, the overall productivity of the company increases,” he said.
He was speaking on the occasion of a seminar, ‘Empowering Women in the Maritime Community’, as part of this year’s World Maritime Day celebrations.
According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) data, women represent only 2% of the world’s 1.2 million seafarers today, and 94% of them work in the cruise industry wherein they do short trips.
Traditionally, the maritime industry has been male-centric due to the extreme hard manual labour involved with the job and the requirement of sailing for a long period.
IMO mission
This year, the IMO has made it its prime mission to bring in more inclusiveness in the fraternity from a sociocultural point of view. This is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 5 of Gender Equality.
Saifuddin H. Hajee, chairman, SHM Group of Companies, said, “Empowering women fuels thriving economies across the world. It spurs growth, development and benefits everyone working in the global maritime community in the drive towards safe, secure, clean and sustainable shipping. We are proud to say that 20% of our workforce is women.”
