Tag: women in shipping

The video, produced by Celebrity Cruises, presents Captain Kate McCue, the first American woman to command a cruise ship. Captain McCue shares how she decided to follow this traditionally male-dominated career path, her experiences onboard and the interaction with passengers and other crew onboard. 

Dr. Purnell notes that it is now time for the maritime industry to raise its profile. In particular, there are many young people not aware of the fantastic careers that exist in the shipping community. The STEM initiative needs to be taken more seriously in many schools, and events to showcase these careers need to be more widespread, she argues.

The European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) conducted a survey focusing on the women of the transport sector, launching the "Yes to women in transport" campaign. Women seafarers revealed the challenges of dealing with harassment in the workplace.

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) launched its ICS Diversity Tracker, revealing that 30% of companies employ women in board-level roles, and close to 60% of companies have female officers on board their ships while just 7.5% of total seafarers were female. 

Jenny Matthews, Founder of the ‘She of the Sea’ introduces the initiative which aims to enhance diversity and inclusion in the yachting sector and discusses how to remove any barriers towards that end. Change does not happen over night, and hopefully, the global community is already on a journey for a more diverse and equal industry. All in all, the practices and cultures we build now will be critical to the sustainability of our industry as we move forward, Mrs Matthews notes.

Petra Sviberg, a seafarer on Viking Line's ferry Viking Cinderella, focuses on the role women have in the shipping industry, highlighting that women have still a stereotypical image and presenting the Swedish #metoo movement in Sweden called Vågrätt.

A recently launched article issued by the Institute of Development Studies shares a story of a group of women seafarers from the Philippines, shedding light on instances of sexual harassment in the maritime industry.

In our special column this month, we are pleased to host an interview with Päivi Haikkola, Senior Ecosystem Lead, One Sea Ecosystem DIMECC Ltd who she finds it exciting to work on new technologies for the maritime industry. The most recent developments in AI and computing can now be utilized within maritime. However, she notes, there is still a lot of misconceptions about autonomous remote operated and related technologies.

The US Navy's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) program was launched in order to meet the needs of the victims within the maritime industry.

The Royal Canadian Navy inroduced its new initiative, supporting diversity of genders, by adopting gender-neutral ranks.