… Council joins WILAT to mark International Women’s Day
As part of efforts to embrace gender equity, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has revealed that 45 percent of its top management cadre are women with over 65 percent of its female workforce trained locally and abroad in different capacity programmes.
With this development, the Council has surpassed the 35 percent affirmative action of the United Nations on gender equality.
Executive Secretary of the Council, Emmanuel Jime, disclosed this in Lagos on Wednesday at an event to mark this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) held in conjunction with the Women in Logistics and Transport (WILAT) at the Council’s headquarters.
The International Women’s Day is observed globally every March 8 to recognize the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
The theme for this year’s celebration is ‘DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality’’ which highlights the role of innovation and technology in promoting gender equality.
Represented by the Deputy Director, Human Resources, NSC, Mrs Adaku Okam, Jime said the theme of this year’s IWD is apt especially at this time to enlighten as well as facilitate equality and fairness, first, for the female folks and male in the society.
He assured that the Council will continue to create an enabling environment for female employees to succeed in whatever roles they have in the council and demonstrate requisite capacity.
He said, “I identify with you today my sisters in commemorating the United Nations Gender Initiative to celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day event themed “Embrace Equity.”
“Nigerian Shippers’ Council is gender friendly as reflected in the number of women representation in the top cadre of management. Precisely, women represent 45% percent in the high-profile cadre as well as occupying other equally juicy positions in similar levels of representation. We indeed have surpassed the 35% affirmative action of the United Nations.
“Council will do more where our female member of Staff demonstrates the requisite capacity. I commend our female staff for showing capacity by performing excellently well in their designated offices,” he said.
Chairperson, WILAT Nigeria, Khadijah Sheidu, lamented the poor representation of women in the technical section of the maritime sector, noting that more women need to be encouraged to increase their participation not just in the management and administrative cadre but in the technical aspect of the sector.
“What has actually happened is that the male dominates the technical session of the shipping sector. We don’t have enough women in the sector like marine engineers, and seafarers. We don’t have a lot of them in the vessel as well. We want pilots and we want women to drive boats.
“We don’t have enough women in that technical section, so we need to encourage our young women to take part in this aspect. Over 15 years ago the administrative percentage was about 7 per cent but today, it’s about 20 per cent in administration,” she stated.
Also speaking, National President, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Mrs. Mfon Usoro, while noting that the industry is male dominated, urged women to create and harness opportunities inherent in the sector to meet up with their male counterparts in the sector.
Usoro, a former Director General of the Nigerian Marítime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), said that there are technological innovations in the maritime sector that require intelligence rather than physical strength.
“I am now very pleased about the theme of the IWD which is equity through technology and in technology we do not require physical strength because that is what men use because the job is strenuous and stressful.
“Technology is the brain so we need to create opportunities for ourselves and encourage our girls to be good in science and mathematics subjects because that is where you start if you want to be good at using technology. We will always have the rest of us who are arts inclined but those that have flair for sciences and mathematics, let’s encourage them.
“A lot of digitalisation is now in shipping, even being on the bridge, everything is digitalised. This is about encouraging ourselves and not being afraid that opportunities are not there. We are talking about creating opportunities for ourselves and we should not wait for people to create the opportunity for us,” she said.
Usoro stated that women should compete and break barriers in order to get to the top because several people are competing for fewer positions.
“Men also are hustling to get there and up there, there are few seats. So, they are hustling and they would not remember to keep opportunities for us women. We should create the opportunity and make them realise that we are hardworking, smart and intelligent and ready to contribute and not look for excuses to say because I am a woman, I will not work after 5.00 p.m. Who goes to the top and stops work at 5.00 p.m, nobody. This is because there are other women who are ambitious, so you just need to rearrange yourself, do what the men do to get to the top,” she said.
