On a quiet island in Tunisia, Sara Souissi prepares her small fishing boat. As a woman in a male-dominated trade, she struggles against entrenched patriarchy as well as environmental threats to her livelihood.
Swissi began fishing as a teenager in a fishing family on the Kerkena Islands, near the city of Sfax, defying the men who believed she had no place in the sea.
“Our society didn’t accept that a woman would fish,” she said, hauling a fish into her turquoise boat.
“But I persisted, because I love fishing and I love the sea,” said Swissy, 43, who is married to a fisherman and is the mother of one child.
A significant part of Tunisia is coastal or near the coast, making the sea an essential component of daily life.
Seafood, a staple of Tunisian cuisine, is also a major export for the North African country, with Italy, Spain and Malta top buyers and revenues approaching 900 million dinars ($295 million) last year, according to with official data.
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Tunisian women have long played an important role in this vital sector.
But their work has been undervalued and undersupported, according to a recent study by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The study said that while women were actively involved throughout the fisheries value chain, they remained “generally not seen as real workers” by their male counterparts.
Fishermen also have less access to administrative benefits, education and banking services, where they are considered “high-risk borrowers” compared to men, the study said.
As a result, many do not have their own boats and those who work with male relatives are “considered family help and therefore not paid,” he added.
Under the table
In Raoued, a coastal town on the edge of the capital Tunis, the Tunisian Society for Sustainable Fisheries launched a workshop in June on the inclusion of women in the trade.
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But most of the women attending the training told AFP they were only there to help male relatives.
“I want to help develop this sector. Women can make fish nets,” said Safa Ben Khalifa, a participant.
There are currently no official figures for female fishermen in Tunisia.
Although Swissi is officially registered in her profession, many Tunisian women can only work under the table — the World Economic Forum estimates that 60 percent of workers in the informal sector are women.
“We want to create additional resources in the midst of climate change, diminishing marine resources and poor fishing practices,” said Ryma Moussaoui, the coordinator of the Raoued workshop.
Last month, the Mediterranean Sea reached its hottest temperature on record with a daily average of 28.9 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit), Spain’s top marine science institute said.
Pressure on marine life and resources has worsened in countries such as Tunisia from pollution and overfishing.
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Rising temperatures make the waters uninhabitable for many species, and unsustainable fishing such as trawling or the use of plastic traps indiscriminately sweeps dwindling marine life and exacerbates pollution.
“They don’t respect the rules,” Swissy said of fishermen who use these methods. “They catch what they can, even in the off-season.”
“Adverse environment”
In 2017 in Skira, a port city on the Gulf of Gabes, 40 female clam pickers formed a union to boost their income — only to see their hard-earned earnings later wiped out by pollution.
Before its establishment, women earned about one-tenth of the final selling price of clams in Europe, said its president, Huda Mansour. By cutting out “exploitative middlemen”, the union helped increase their profits, he added.
In 2020, however, the government banned clam harvesting due to a severe decline in shellfish populations, leaving the women unemployed.
“They don’t have diplomas and can’t do other jobs,” explained Mansour, now a baker.
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In warmer, polluted waters, clams struggle to build strong shells and survive. Industrial waste dumped in the Gulf of Gabes for decades has contributed to the problem.
It has also forced other species to leave, said Emna Benkahla, a fisheries economics researcher at Tunis El Manar University.
“The water has become an unfavorable environment for them to live and reproduce,” undermining fishermen’s income, he said.
“Because they couldn’t fish anymore, some sold their boats to migrants who wanted to cross the Mediterranean illegally,” he added, calling for more sustainable practices.
Souissi, who uses only relatively small nets without a motor on her boat, said she and others must fish responsibly to survive.
“Otherwise, what else can I do?” she said rowing her boat back to shore. “Stay home and clean? No, I want to keep fishing.”
Source: AFP