Hambantota International Port partners WISTA to support gender diversity for seafarers
In a bid to increase awareness of gender diversity in the workplace, Hambantota International Port (HIP) partnered with the Sri Lankan arm of the Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA).
The association, together with the port team, launched a programme for ships calling at the Hambantota Port.
The seafaring profession is largely male dominated. As stated in the IMO report of 1992, women accounted for only one to two percent of the 1.25 million seafarers in the world. As such, women represent an untapped resource for crewing the world fleet and addressing the current labour shortage.
Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG) CEO Ray Ren said, “It is probably due to the male dominated factor that women have not considered career paths in the shipping industry very seriously. No doubt that seafaring could be a challenging job for women and that is the reason why proper safeguards are a requirement.
“Women may fear to enter this profession as they would anticipate facing harassment and little support from their co-workers, considering seafaring has so far been known to be mostly an all-male environment. This needs to change and we believe this programme we have launched with WISTA Sri Lanka, is an initial step on our part in impacting this sector.”
HIP kicked off the programme at an event held onboard vessel Shohjin, which called at the port recently. A booklet on gender diversity was presented to the Captain of the vessel, Md. Wahidul Haque, at the ceremony. The port plans to hand over a book to each vessel that calls at HIP from now on.
The publication by Anglo-eastern Ship Management Limited and the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN), addresses issues for behaviour between men and women working together on-board. It addresses major challenges of discrimination, sexual harassment, isolation and attitude and aims to encourage seafarers not to turn a blind eye to the issues but to make a conscious effort to be more sensitive to individual differences onboard. The book encourages above all showing respect both in thought and in action, especially since more women are now being employed as seafarers.
Staff of Hambantota International Port and representatives of WISTA Sri Lanka were also present at this ceremony.