Empowerment of fisherwomen in Kerala – an assessment

Investing in women capabilities and empowering them to exercise their choice is not only valuable itself but also the surest way to contribute to the economic growth and development (UNDP, 2008). The fisheries sector is an important source of livelihood for women. In India, about 25% t of women labour force is involved in pre-harvest activities, 35% in export marketing and 40% in internal marketing. The fisherwomen in Kerala play an important role in the fisheries sector in terms of their involvement in fishery related activities viz., fish vending, fish drying, prawn peeling, sorting, grading, fish packing, and net making. The study was focused on the empowerment status of fisherwomen in Kerala across the four occupational groups viz., fish retailer, fish vendor, dry fish makers, and value added fish producers. The specific objectives were to estimate the social, political and economic empowerment of fisherwomen involved in processing and marketing of fish and fishery products in Kerala. The study was based on the data collected from primary and secondary sources of selected coastal districts across the state. The different empowerment parameters like social, economic, legal and political were analysed with the help of scoring indices. The study revealed that highest level of gender discrimination faced by all the respondents across the four different occupational groups were in handling, transporting and storing bulk quantities of fish resources. The assessment of the empowerment indicated that the maximum empowerment was among the value added fish producers followed by retailers and least for the dry fish makers and vendors . The fisherwomen were politically empowered and less empowered legally. Overall, the results showed that, in Kerala, the fisherwomen were more politically empowered and also the composite fisherwomen empowerment index was high indicating better status of fisherwomen in former than in latter