Today Hafnia commemorates The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) International Day for Women in Maritime – observed on the 18th of May each year.
As a traditionally male dominated industry, gender imbalance in the maritime industry is a common challenge across the world – onshore and at sea. To this effect, IMO Member States and the Maritime industry endeavours to promote and celebrate women in the maritime sector to drive awareness of a challenge which affects recruitment, retention, and sustained employment of women in the maritime sector.
Hafnia embeds Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging (DIBE) at the heart of our business strategy and People-First culture as robust infrastructure in ensuring steps are made to move forward. Whilst gender imbalance is more tangibly measured, we aim to foster a culture where all employees onshore and at sea feel valued, inspired, fulfilled, and fairly treated. We welcome differences in age, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability and or disability, background, and any other chrematistics that make our team members unique and individual. Diverse thoughts, ideas, and perspectives where people feel like they can be their true self at work is what we believe to be the backbone of our success.
In the past year alone, Hafnia continues our active stance in tangibly acting to foster a more inclusive environment from sea to shore. Via its initiatives, Hafnia currently counts 35% of women onshore, with a target of achieving a 40% ratio by 2025. Female seafarers at Hafnia currently make up approximately 5% of the total team at sea, higher than the 2% industry average.
Alongside our on-going DIBE initiatives captured in our 2022 annual report, in 2023 Hafnia was excited to officially announce our preparation for our Maritime Culture Lab. This initiative will see four Hafnia vessels crewed with at least a 50% ratio of women seafarers. The aim of this cultural experiment is to discover insights that can help Hafnia improve upon making life at sea more attractive for women, and in getting ships and existing crews up to speed on areas which might experience any shortcomings or vulnerabilities. This will also include observations on the treatment of female seafarers by external port officials. Hafnia is currently securing the talent pipeline for these vessels and are in dialogues with academic institutions and advisors in defining how this data will be collected and consolidated for applied learning onboard, with an end goal of creating a more diverse industry.
In January 2023, Hafnia also officially entered an official partnership with the Regional Maritime University in Ghana. Through this partnership (which has been defined as strengthening Hafnia’s maritime excellence and talent pipeline globally, a secondary objective also includes increasing diversity at sea). Through this initiative, Hafnia will increase the number of its female seafarers at sea substantially.
In commemoration of International Day for Women in Maritime 2023, Hafnia women from onshore and at sea created an ode to the day in response to the IMO’s campaign “Women in Maritime Can…” capturing our DIBE culture and spirit. This can be viewed on our social media channels (Instagram and LinkedIn).
Today we champion and congratulate the entire team at Hafnia who together work hard and collaboratively in leading positive change across this important topic.