Gender included from the ‘get go’ in global small-scale fisheries study

Gender experts from across the globe have sought out scarce sets of sex-disaggregated data for the Illuminating Hidden Harvests initiative, ensuring that both women’s and men’s contributions to small-scale fisheries are seen.

Just as data tells stories, so too does missing data.

“In fisheries, the lack of sex-disaggregated data is a story in itself,” said Dr Jennifer Lee Johnson, an anthropologist with Purdue University.

Sex-disaggregated data refers to data collected and analyzed separately on women and men.

In many places across the world, data on women’s roles and contributions to small-scale fisheries are not readily available in mainstream fisheries data systems. In turn, women are often overlooked in fisheries policies and programs, including in-licensing systems. Read the rest