On the sidelines of the European Shipping Week 2020, Danish Shipping discussed the importance of more women onboard vessels and in the shipping industry, referring to ECSA’s goal on getting more women onboard.
Anne Windfeldt Trolle, Executive Director, Danish Shipping, spoke during the event to discuss about the initiatives launched to increase the number of women in the maritime sector.
Anne W. Trolle commented that
I am really pleased that ECSA is focusing on enhanced participation of women in the maritime sector. In Danish Shipping we put a lot of efforts into this and it is therefore very relevant for us to meet other organisations and hear how other countries address this.
Recently, Denmark launched the charter initiative which obliges the shipping companies among other things to devise a strategy or plan to increase the proportion of women in the company and describe and put forward initiatives to support it. The companies are also required to develop and set targets for the proportion of women in the company and appoint a member of top management to be responsible for the action.
Anne W. Trolle added that this initiative is proving to be successful, following the path of gender diversity within the sector and setting goals and actions plans for how to attract more women into the company. For the time being, the initiative has gained momentum as 17 shipping companies have joined the charter.
Supporting more women in shipping, Lena Gotheberg noted that “Every industry is looking to attract the same talent pool, we have a lot of work to do.”
In addition, during the event, Sjöfolk’s Mikael Lindmark published a Swedish study highlighting that
50% of seafarers say they don’t have energy for anything else after a day of work. 1/5 of women say their boss treats them disrespectfully.
During the opening of the event, Oxford Economics presented the EU’s progress reporting that despite the fact that the sector is under pressure due to the difficult market conditions, the European Shipping industry contributed €54 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the EU.