Restoring Lake Victoria’s Ecology Could Help End Fish-For-Sex Culture

Local efforts to restore the ecosystem of Lake Victoria, the world’s second biggest lake, also aims to reduce gender-based violence.

With fishing stocks collapsing on the lake, recent decades have seen the emergence of Jaboya culture where women, who make up 90% of fish traders, engage in transactional sex as one of the strategies to get access to the catch from fishermen.

Leonard Akwany, volunteer coordinator at Ecofinder Kenya and freshwater director at Conservation International, says that the restoration of fisheries resources is not only critical in terms of freshwater biodiversity, food security and secure livelihoods; but critical in empowering women and reducing the pressures that lead to Jaboya culture.

“Less fish means more gender-based violence as manifested through sex-for-fish or Jaboya culture,” he says, adding that’s one reason why local women are strong force and supporters of fisheries conservation work.

More than 75 per cent of the biodiversity endemic to Africa’s Lake Victoria is at the risk of becoming extinct, according to a 2018 report International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Akwany’s new project will be implemented in the Winam Gulf area covering Kisumu, Siaya – the hometown of Barack Obama’s father – and Busia Counties in western Kenya and will target three Critically Endangered native fish species: Ngege, Mbiru and Ningu.

“Our work pivots around protection of freshwater fish species but also associated wetlands, endemic papyrus birds and seme-aquatic antelope; Sitatunga,” he says.

The plan is to create a 3,000 hectare community-managed fishery reserve and implement grass-root interventions in fishing villages of Lake Victoria to control overfishing and aquatic environment degradation.

“The establishment of community fish reserves for fish breeding and right fishing methods will build the capacity of fisherfolk communities for grass-root freshwater fisheries conservation stewardship and alternative friendly livelihoods,” Akwany says, adding that bringing fishers, fish traders, boat owners and stakeholders together is key to effectively manage fisheries and reduce environmentally damaging fishing practices, like the use of trawl nets.

In 2023, UK charity Whitley Fund for Nature honored Akwany with a Whitley Award for his conservation work with the fisheries of Lake Victoria.

Lake Victoria

Akwany is a fisherman himself and grew up in western Kenya, specifically Kisumu in the shores of Lake Victoria.

“Growing up around Lake Victoria, enjoying its scenic beauty, swimming in its cool waters and eating its delicious and nutritious fish, specifically the native tilapia, we call Ngege in my mother-tongue triggered my love and passion for aquatic ecosystems and fisheries conservation” he says.

Akwany says that Global south scientists have immense capacity to offer towards natural resources conservation, environmental sustainability and associated global challenges.

“We need to be at the front-line of investing the global challenges due to our local knowledge and intimate experience with nature and its people,” he says.

From Costa Rica to Lake Tanganyika

Another Global South scientist who has extensively studied the ecosystem of one of Africa’s Great Lakes is Jimena Golcher-Benavides, a researcher at Iowa State University in the US.

In Lake Tanganyika, she has studied Cichlidae, more commonly known as cichlids, an important fish species for small-scale fisheries, aquaculture and in the global aquarium trade.

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“Surveying fishes while scuba-diving in Lake Tanganyika has allowed me to gain understanding on complex species interactions, the role resource-rich environments play in supporting greater diversity,” Golcher-Benavides says, adding that unfortunately, suitable habitat for fish and other aquatic fauna in the water column is shrinking due to climate warming, threatening unique species and the human livelihoods that depend on them.

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