Maritime Policy and Legal Matters Legal Principles and Guarantees of Realisation of Gender Equality in the Labour and Social Sphere

An employment of women‐seafarers and related gender aspects are important in future
development of modern shipping. At the same time, specification of maritime shipping imposes traditionally
low proportion of women in relation to the total number of qualified seafarers on ships. Equality issues in
maritime shipping are not only limited to equality between women and men, but also encompasses situations
with vessel’s operation issues and related working relationship.
The purpose of this article is to define the tasks and trends of international legal provision of gender equality’s
improvement in practice plane on the basis of international law and current Ukraine’s legislation, scientific
developments, domestic and foreign experience.
The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) and the basic
international legal instruments and agreements containing standards of equality between women and men offer
member states a policy of eliminating discrimination and requiring the introduction of a range of
antidiscrimination measures. International organizations such as the IMO and the ILO pay great attention to the
importance of gender equality issues on merchant ships. One of the ILOʹs fundamental international standard is
gender equality, which must be ensured by both of the state and the social partners, such as workersʹ and
employersʹ organizations. Hence, ILO approaches in ensuring gender equality are very important in maritime
shipping.