Presentation on 10th November 2021 by SWAIMS Project Officer at the 1st Blue Career and Business Expo, Accra, Ghana, organised by the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Institute (GoGMI), 9th–10th November 2021.

1. Support to West
Africa Integrated
Maritime Security
(SWAIMS)
Gender in the Maritime Space: A
maritime security perspective
Emike Aken’Ova

2. Who we are?
• SWAIMS is a €28 million ECOWAS programme funded by the EU, it
contributes to implementing the ECOWAS Integrated Maritime
Strategy.

3. OBJECTIVES
• SWAIMS’ objective is to improve maritime security and safety in the
ECOWAS region and Mauritania. The project has two main prongs:
• (1) strengthening legal, governance and law-enforcement frameworks
to better support maritime security;
• (2) improving law-enforcement operational capacities and responses
through customised institutional and technical capacity-building.

4. Maritime Insecurity
• encompasses piracy and other armed attacks, kidnap for ransom, oil
theft, trafficking and smuggling (including drugs, arms and human
trafficking), illegal fishing; and environmental crimes, among others
• The world as a whole seems to suffer from sea blindness, that is the
“inability to appreciate the central role the oceans and naval power
have played in securing our strategic security and economic
prosperity”
• This means that not enough attention is paid to maritime insecurity
and the ills it has brought to the ECOWAS region

5. Maritime Insecurity and Gender
• Women and girls are particularly susceptible to the effects of
maritime insecurity in the ECOWAS region.
• The economic and social impacts of maritime insecurity on women
and girl cannot be overstated, as it continues to hamper development
particularly in the coastal areas.

6. Gender
dimension
to
Trafficking
and
Smuggling
• In Senegal, one of the main maritime
security concerns is irregular migration
which is caused by amongst other
things the overexploitation of fishing
stocks and it effect on artisanal
fisherfolk
• Women and girls are too often victims
of human trafficking, where they are
subject to violence against their persons
every step of the journey

7. Gender
dimension to
Environmental
Crimes
• Illicit oil bunkering leads to pollution
and destruction of the environment,
thereby depleting fishing stocks.
• This leads to fisherfolk having go further
out to sea to seek fishing stocks. Having
the unfortunate outcome of women
being further excluded from fishing
activities.

8. Gender
dimension
to IUU
Fishing
• IUU fishing is a crime, but there is no
international agreement, yet it does contribute
significantly to maritime insecurity .
• IUU fishing leads to depletion of fishing stocks
which in turn leads to depleted number of fish
for women to process in what has
traditionally been their domain thereby
further pushing them out of the industry

9. Piracy and
Armed
Robbery at
Sea
a. According to UNCLOS, piracy is any illegal acts of violence or
detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the
crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:
i. on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons
or property on board such ship or aircraft;
ii. against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the
jurisdiction of any State;
b. any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft
with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;
c. any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in
subparagraph (a) or (b).
Armed Robbery at Sea
a) According to UNCLOS, this is defined as any illegal act of violence or
detention or any act of depredation, or threat thereof, other than an act of
piracy, committed for private ends and directed against a ship or against
persons or property on board such a ship, within a State's internal waters,
archipelagic waters and territorial sea;
b) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described above.”

10. Gender
dimension
to Piracy
and Armed
Robbery at
Sea
• Most Piracy in the ECOWAS region stems
from Nigeria’s Niger Delta, so it is important to
address how piracy affects women and girls in
said region.
• Due to the aforementioned maritime security
issues and the worsening economy, women
are joining piracy gangs.

11. Maritime security and Gender
• However, there is good news on the horizon as women and girls do have a role to
play in mitigating the impacts of maritime insecurity on society.
• Through the SWAIMS programme and others like it , ECOWAS and the EU are
combatting maritime insecurity.

12. Legal Component
• The SWAIMS programme, through UNODC holds different training sessions for
magistrates and prosecutors, as well as conducting gender assessments on the
impacts of maritime criminality
• Maritime lawyers assist in prosecution of maritime crimes as countries
strengthen their laws, one can go into maritime law, there are a few women
already practicing that arm of law but not enough.

13. Operational Training (ARSTM/ISMI and RMU)
• The SWAIMS program aims to build capacity in the region by strengthening
operational training through ARSTM/ISMI and RMU
• ARSTM/ISMI has held 3 training sessions for magistrates, prosecutors, police and
customs agents. There is always an effort made to recruit women.
• RMU has held one training session on Maritime Affairs and Security, with 22% of
the students being women. It is an intensive 10-week class. A repeat of which
will take place later this month or early next month.

14. Coordination with the private sector and
participation of civil society are improved.
• Promote wider engagement with civil society.
• This is one of the more successful components of SWAIMS, we have held 8
events for CSOs and reached 500+ individuals with most events being focused on
different countries within the region and the others being regional.
• During the regional events, there is great effort made to achieve gender parity

15. SWAIMS
• Through the SWAIMS programme, ECOWAS and
the EU continue to do their part to ensure the
integration of women into the maritime security
apparatus.

16. References
• THISDAY, Addressing gender imbalance in maritime industry, This Day Live, 10 July 2019,
www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/07/10/addressing-gender-imbalance-in-maritime-industry/.
• PB Browne, Women do fish: a case study on gender and the fishing industry in Sierra Leone,
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/7084014.pdf.