“Women and Children First”: Fishery Collapse and Women in Newfoundland and Labrador

ID:	HARP-291
Title:	“Women and Children First”: Fishery Collapse and Women in Newfoundland and Labrador
Source:	Cultural Survival Quarterly, Issue 20.1, http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/csq/print/article_print.cfm?id=7454A766-5771-411F-897A-3ACAB479BE79
Parties:
Dispute Resolution Organ:
Year:	1996
Pages:	0
Author(s):
Keywords:	Canada, decision making, economic, social, and cultural rights, employment, gender equality, human rights, woman, fishery, Newfoundland
Abstract:	The impact of the fishery closures on the identities and income of fishermen have been profound and are well documented in press coverage and in several documentaries. Impacts on the several thousand women, directly and indirectly dependent on fisheries, have received far less attention. For generations, women’s access to fishery work and wealth has depended upon their relationships with men and, more recently, with corporate employers. Neither women nor young people are participating in the decision-making that concerns the fishing industry of the future. Their absence from the table is impoverishing the policy-making process and placing them at risk. Women’s organizations in Atlantic Canada have been concerned about the impacts of the closures on women in fishery communities. They have been working to document these impacts and to reduce the marginalization of these women within the decision-making processes that are guiding government response to the closures and are shaping the industry of the future. This article is based on research carried out over the past two years by FishNet, a coalition of women’s organizations in Newfoundland and Labrador. The effects of the closures have been particularly profound in the province, where over 35,000 fishery workers have been laid off. The “voices from the commons” in this article come from action research workshops and from a collection of 87 women’s “stories” about their lives in the fishery.
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