Women in Fisheries and Aquaculture in Nigeria: Introducing the Bootstrap in the Roadmap

Abstract

Nigeria’s fisheries sector is gender biased in terms of prominence in participation. The male counterparts dominate the scene, occupying prominent positions such as ownership, control and access to productive resources of aquaculture production systems, ownership of the fishing vessels and equipment in the capture fisheries sector. These roles confer on them pecuniary benefits such as investment opportunities, loan facilities, importing and exporting licences, among others. Despite women’s economic potentials in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture, investments by women in both the aquaculture, artisanal and industrial sectors are at abysmally low levels. The female counterparts play the second-fiddle role of processing and marketing while depending on the male counterparts for major decisions. Underlying socio-cultural norms and gender relations accentuated by intersectionality are factors which most often impede the opportunities to own, access to or control productive resources and other inputs. Apparently, gender mainstreaming in the fisheries sector is very nascent in Nigeria. Our objective in this review is to re-orient women particularly in the small-scale fisheries sector including capture and aquaculture for active and strong participation in ownership, productivity and policy/decision making contributions. Secondary data and inferences from previous studies, particularly reports and reviews from across the globe were compared with what is obtainable in Nigeria. We therefore propose improving social-entrepreneurship, bootstrapping and social-capital based empowerment initiatives among other interventions that would boost women’s participation in Nigeria’s fisheries sector.