Public Lecture: Empowering Filipino Women Seafarers in the Maritime Sector

The Center would like to invite everyone to the public lecture of Lucia P. Tangi, Professor of the College of Mass Communication, who will deliver a lecture “Empowering Filipino Women Seafarers in the Maritime Sector” on 04 July 2016, 1:00 PM at Bulwagan ng Dangal, Roxas Street, UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City. Registration starts at 12:30 PM.

About the Lecture

Filipinos account for  a  quarter  of  the  world’s   1.6 million seafarers. However, Filipino   women  account  for  only  around  two  percent  of more than  300,000  seafarers  deployed  annually.  Around 90 percent of these  women seafarers are in the services  and domestic sectors,  doing jobs  that  are related to their reproductive  duties.  Because  of this,  Filipino women  seafarers  are among the  lowest paid  in the  seafaring  industry  and are also among the  most vulnerable  to  redundancy . Following the enactment in the 1990s of the Women in Development and Nation Building Act, maritime schools started opening up to women who wanted to become  sea officers.  Although more  women  have been  attracted to seafaring in the past decade, the number of  women   sea officers  has remained  small  compared to the  thousands of male  sea officers deployed every year. Based on focus group discussions and key informant interviews with almost a hundred stakeholders, this study finds that women  sea officers  often  face discrimination as soon as they start applying for shipboard internship and employment. They have  to battle  loneliness, sexual harassment  and  bullying  by their male colleagues on board.  This study  finds that patriarchal beliefs and control  in the seafaring industry  have discouraged  women  sea officers from pursuing  their career at sea.This  is aggravated by ship owners’ race to reduce cost at the expense  of seafarers.  Using  SaraLongwe’s Empowerment Framework as guide, this policy research  proposes some package  of  measures  to empower  women by addressing  issues on welfare, access, conscientization, mobilization and control.

This public lecture is jointly sponsored by the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies (UP CIDS) and the UP College of Mass Communication. Also attached here is the abstract of the lecture.

For Inquiries/RSVP

For confirmation and details, please contact Ms. Rose Punay at telephone numbers 981-8500 local  4266, 4267, and 4268 or email [email protected]. You can also pre-register for the event on the Google form below: