Daily Times

Gender equality has remained a core destination of the modern world. Since time immemorial, the world has witnessed a huge gap in considering women at par with their male counterparts.

Modern civilisations evolved on the world map had reached their sustained development through acknowledged fact of gender parity. It would not be wrong to say that without the existence of women, the humanity would not have come into being.

The relationship of humanity with the seas and oceans is emerging promptly. The maritime community provided people with immense onshore and offshore resources that becomes a necessity for rapid paced development through well connected shipping. With gender disparity, the untapped potential of blue economy cannot be extracted. Therefore, The World Maritime Day 2019 is being observed on 26 September with the theme of “Empowering women in the maritime community” to elucidates how important the role of women is for building a sustainable future in the maritime world.

The history depicts that the shipping industries have always been remained a subject to male gender owing to the intensive labour work. The reality delineates gender inequality in the workforce segment and becomes even more clear when it comes to the male dominated maritime industry where only 2% of the workforce comprised of women workers. Despite of the efforts done by the maritime industry to engage more women as workforce still lacks in closing the gender based gap due to its slow pace. For a long, females have been disallowed for jobs in maritime sector in particular and other industries in general. If we roll back into the history, we can admit women’s strong dedication and commitment to hard work placing them into the notion of “the first female” in every field of life.

Globalisation has guided a fundamental restructuring of the maritime sector. The technological transformation has set new milestones together with the phenomenal developmental progress that has enabled the rise of maritime community. The wave of modernisation in maritime domain has deeply minimised the workload thus, providing opportunities especially for women to look up for their careers on board. The more investing in women is the most effective approach for societies, communities and countries to lift economically. Having more gender equality upends with better economic growth.

The maritime sector has formed as a bedrock of the modern seaborne trade. Emerging maritime environment has an immense importance for Pakistan as it is one of the important littoral state in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), with having 1050 km coastline and about 240,000 sq. km Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). To completely get benefit from this inheritance, there is a dire need to empower women in the maritime community. Realising the importance of women’s participation in nation building, Pakistan Navy has been providing equal opportunities to females in different branches of service therefore, charting the course of human progress. Reciprocating the theme of World Maritime Day, Pakistan Navy is aligned to the tenets of International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in promoting gender equality for sustainable future goals. Thus, providing a platform for galvanising efforts to mitigate gender imbalances by spreading awareness about the significance of maritime sector among the populace as well as the decision-makers.

To sum up, World Maritime Day is aimed to emphasise on effective women’s participation in the maritime sector in line with national objectives to achieve Pakistan’s maritime interests. The promotion of gender parity requires a strong cohesion among all segments of global society to address the issues to the core which entails all barriers which suspends the potential of women and barring them from becoming a valuable work force in taking a lead to become a part of growing maritime economy. Following the theme of empowering women, the maritime global body is called for synergising efforts to strengthen the maritime sector by increasing avenues and facilitating access to the women in maritime community.

The writer can be contacted at ali.basit.mansoor@gmail.com