‘‘Safe at sea…it takes all of us!’: Seas The Mind Reports On ISWAN’s Campaign Event

It’s been a busy month at Seas the Mind – which can only mean one thing – the yachting industry has really started to take mental health seriously! On the 3^rd October our team were lucky enough to attend a thought-provoking and constructive event hosted by ISWAN in conjunction with The Seafarers Charity and UK P&I Club to mark their allyship campaign: ‘Safe at sea…it takes all of us!’.

The campaign focuses on the role male seafarers can play in making life at sea safer for all, in light of the high incidence of women’s personal safety issues on board.

The event brought together representatives from a variety of maritime stakeholders across shipping, cruise and superyacht industries as well as individual seafarers and academics working on a number of research projects into diversity and safe culture at sea.

The event

It really was a fascinating, at times harrowing, but ultimately exciting and constructive day full of practical and concrete solutions to the currently unacceptable working environments faced by too many female seafarers. Obviously, in order to discuss solutions we had to first address the problems faced by women at sea, including hearing testimonies of abuse, bullying, harassment, discrimination and violence (ABHDV) as well as lack of appropriate protective equipment and sanitary facilities.

ISWAN themselves reported that women seafarers were three times more likely last year to call their helplines and more than twice as likely to report a mental health issue. Nautilus recently reported that more than two thirds of women seafarers report sexual harassment at some point in their careers.

Key issues

For those of us with the experience of years at sea, sadly many of the testimonies were not surprising, but they were distressing to hear nonetheless.

Across reports from Safer Waves – an organisation that supports victims of sexual abuse and harassment at sea, Equimundo – a research organisation focused on gender equality in the workplace, the Global Maritime Forum on their Diversity@Sea pilot study and Dr Kate Pike on ISWAN’s Social Interaction Matters (SIM) project studying 400 crew across 12 vessels, certain key themes were consistently clear:

Firstly, while there is a clear need for change, women seafarers who were questioned on their experience overwhelmingly said they did not want to be singled out but just included and respected in their workplace.
Secondly when asked what would be most helpful in making women not only physically safer, but in feeling safer psychologically the answers consistently stressed the crucial role of onboard culture and effective leadership.
Unfortunately, when the International Maritime Health journal states that around two thirds of harassment is reported to have come from higher ranking seafarers, the challenge in achieving that onboard culture is clear.

Practical recommendations for leaders

There was so much food for thought and beneficial research that would be of great interest to Captains and Heads of Department who are genuinely interested in creating safe and positive working environments for their crew. Real and practical recommendations for leaders included but were not limited to:

showing that you are proactive in dealing with inappropriate behaviour no matter how minor
having comprehensive onboard support – physical, designated crew members with some basic training in responding to reports of harassment, abuse and sexual assault
leading by example and showing crew that there is a transparent, accountable, fair, robust and trustworthy leadership in place so that should a serious incident take place there are:
systems and processes for reporting, responding and investigating
inviting feedback and receiving it in a constructive spirit

Obviously it’s hard to summarise hours of in-depth research and heartfelt testimonies but those were some of our main takeaways.

As an amazing working example of the concept of allyship there were many wonderful men at the event along with the women, speaking, presenting research, representing large shipping companies, ex naval officers and yacht captains – all showing real concern and care for their female colleagues and their welfare at sea.

It gave us all a real sense of optimism and excitement for the future of superyachting that a real paradigm shift was in process and that there are many wonderful men in the industry who care deeply about the safety of women at sea and making the yachting industry a safer place for all of us. Those men and their like, those decent colleagues onboard who have for years already helped many of their female colleagues out of an innate sense of fairness, professionalism and compassion are now being called upon to lead the charge in shifting the general culture, and raising the standard for those who have fallen short.

Progress takes all of us

As John F Kennedy’s famous aphorism goes, ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ – and how apt that is here. As female seafarers and their male allies continue to fight for safe, equitable and inclusive conditions at sea everyone wins in the end. A safe, happy team is a productive and efficient team after all. As one brave survivor of assault wrote in her contribution: ‘It was exhausting and soul draining to always remain vigilant and alert when my primary focus should have been my work.’

Just think of the benefits to everyone on board when every crew member can feel safe and secure to focus on their work, instead of struggling against abuse, harassment and worse. Wouldn’t we all love for the seagoing industries to be places we would happily send our sisters and our daughters without a second thought for their safety? We left ISWAN’s event in the knowledge that although we have a fair distance to go, we have some really good allies on board already.

For more information about Seas The Mind, go to the website here: https://www.seasthemind.co.uk/