Women Small Scale Fish Workers

In imagination, fishers are often men who go to fish in the sea. In reality many are women who are inland fishers and are in the allied work. There are many whose lives are intimately entwined in the fishing economy. Many are in the inland fisheries, and do not even figure in the mind as fishers. Fish workers are in the fishing and allied sectors such as cleaning, processing, net repairs, and vending. Many who do the actual vending are women from the inland fisher communities. Many fishers and fish workers are indigenous and tribal people (scheduled tribes) and some are from the scheduled castes as well.

Cutting across all classifications are the women who are almost invisible, and their concerns are erased. Our work is to empower them so that they can centre-stage their concerns in the interface with the state mechanisms, so that these women specific concerns are address in policy and budgets upfront rather than be an afterthought.