First IMO International Day for Women in Maritime 2022

The IMO International Day for Women in Maritime is observed on 18 May every year. The first day is being held in 2022.

The day celebrates women in the industry and is intended to promote the recruitment, retention and sustained employment of women in the maritime sector, raise the profile of women in maritime, strengthen IMO's commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (gender equality) and support work to address the current gender imbalance in maritime.

IMO Member States, the maritime industry, and all others in the maritime endeavour are invited to promote and celebrate the International Day for Women in Maritime in an appropriate and meaningful manner.  

The IMO Assembly in 2021 adopted a resolution proclaiming the day. 

Learn more about the IMO's Women in Maritime Programme here.

A word on IMO's gender programme

Today, women represent only 1.2% percent of the global seafarer workforce as per the BIMCO/ICS 2021 Seafarer Workforce Report. This represents a positive trend in gender balance, with the report estimating 24,059 women serving as seafarers, which is a 45.8% increase compared with the 2015 report.

Within this historically male dominated industry, IMO has been making a concerted effort to help the industry move forward and support women to achieve a representation that is in keeping with twenty-first century expectations.

Within the framework of maritime development, and through its Women in Maritime programme, under the slogan: "Training-Visibility-Recognition", IMO has taken a strategic approach towards enhancing the contribution of women as key maritime stakeholders. IMO continues to support the participation of women in both shore-based and sea-going posts.

IMO is strongly committed to helping its Member States achieve the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls".

sdg5

IMO's gender programme was initiated in 1988. At that time, only a few maritime training institutes opened their doors to female students. Since then, IMO's gender and capacity-building programme has helped put in place an institutional framework to incorporate a gender dimension into IMO's policies and procedures. This has supported access to maritime training and employment opportunities for women in the maritime sector.