Women's empowerment and gender mainstreaming in aquaculture in the Atlantic 

Women make up only 23% of Europe’s total aquaculture workforce. Moreover, female employees in the seafood sector tend to occupy what are considered to be low-valued positions. 

The ASTRAL Project is working to address this imbalance by empowering women in the aquaculture sector. 

To celebrate International Women’s Day, ASTRAL co-organised a networking event titled Women Empowerment in Aquaculture alongside the AIR Centre. The event saw female speakers representing diverse sectors within the aquaculture industry share their experiences and provide a vision for the future. More than 200 registered participants from 40 different countries took part in this event. The full recording of this event is available here.

In April, our project partners, the Nigerian Institute for Oceanography and Marine Research hosted a separate event titled ‘Workshop on Sensitisation and Women Mainstreaming into Aquaculture in Nigeria’. 300 women attended the workshop, which was hosted in collaboration with GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) and the SKYE project (Skills Development for Youth Employment). Alhaja Nurat Atoba, President Lagos State Chapter of CAFAN and NIOMR and ASTRAL Focal Point Person for Women Mainstreaming into Aquaculture spoke at the event, which focussed on the technical and vocational skills women need to lead entrepreneurship in the Aquaculture sector.

More activities promoting and empowering women in aquaculture are planned for 2023.