Women and IMO Support

Credit UN News

Maritime and shipping has historically been a male dominated industry . The International Maritime Organization (IMO) discovered that women represent only 1-2 % of the world’s 1.25 million seafarers and they mostly work in cruise ships. The mission of a merchant ship is to carry cargo from one port to another in a safe and efficient manner. A ship’s culture is a reflection of masculine norms and values. Seafarers invariably live and work in cramped ,mobile, isolated and residential workplaces for extended periods and encounter social and emotional isolation.

Women in Maritime and SDG’s

Credit CIMSEC

The  IMO continues to support the participation of women in both shore-based and sea-going posts and advocates for its Member States to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and particularly Goal 5  “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. IMO’s gender programme was initiated in 1988. At that time only a handful of maritime training institutes allowed women to enter their premises. Under IMO’s auspices eight Women in Maritime Associations (WIMAs) have been established in Africa, Arab States, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific, covering some 152 countries and dependent territories and 490 participants.

Recent Advancements

Credit Military.com

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s superintendent is the first woman to be appointed to the position in the institution’s nearly 80-year history . Retired U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Joanna Nunan is taking over  the helm at the 1,000-person academy on New York’s Long Island .The institute had been the subject of lawsuits in matters of sexual harassment of female cadets.

Russia’s maritime sector pursues an orthodox policy and as far back in the year 2000 a decree was signed by President Vladimir Putin listing 456 jobs in 38 industries from which women were barred as that would entail “heavy work and work in harmful working conditions”. A breakthrough was achieved when an all-female Russian Navy crew carried out patrols in the Black Sea. Kidzhi is a Chief Mate on a Russian nuclear powered icebreaker ,comprising of 95 crew members ,and second to the Captain in Russia’s expanding nuclear icebreaker fleet owned by Rosatom, the state’s atomic energy corporation.

Credit Russia Business Today

 

Credit Marine Insight

The nuclear power fleet is of strategic importance as Russia plans to use the Arctic Ocean and is building up its nuclear powered fleet for an alternate shipping route.  The other nine women on the ship are not deployed on any operational posts.

Credit Marine Insight

For the first time in India a cargo ship (MT Swarna Krishan) was commanded on a voyage by a woman captain and having only lady officers present.The UK has a long maritime history yet only 1% of engineer officers and 4% of deck officers are women and the female cadet intake miserably failed to move beyond 5% in each of the last three academic years.

Credit Nautilus International

Pakistan faces a dismal track record of no women nautical or engineering graduates. However in the Karachi Port Security Force a sizeable contingent of women is deployed for security duty , a first in the entire region.

Credit marineinsight

Captain Tahmasbi completed a three-month-long commanding course in 2023 and has a Master’s  degree in computer science. She was an instructor of marine courses and advanced sea survival techniques. Captain Tahmasbi is Iran’s first female naval captain.

Credit DW

In Kenya Faith Mwagandi has the distinction of commanding a naval warship challenging gender stereotype roles in a conservative African country.

Credit Naval Post

Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt became the first woman to command a nuclear carrier in the U.S. Navy. Capt. Amy has 3,000 flight hours to her credit and is considered a role model for women in the US Navy.She graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994 after the US Congress repealed the law barring female  naval officers from commanding warships.

 

Credit ; The Maritime Executive

In a first the U.S. Navy’s Seabees Naval Construction Group has appointed a female commander, Captain Constance Solina , as commander of Naval Construction Group 2 based in Gulfport. Capt Constance is the first woman to command 4,500 Seabees on the Atlantic seaboard.  Captain Constance Solina is from McLean, Virginia, and is a graduate of Purdue University.

By Nadir Mumtaz