For communities around Lake Victoria, fish is more than a source of food. It is a source of income, employment, and economic opportunity for thousands of people.
But access to that opportunity has not always been equal.
For many years, women involved in the fish trade have faced significant barriers to accessing reliable supplies of fish. One of the most damaging manifestations has been jaboya, a transactional sex practice historically associated with access to fish and fishing livelihoods in parts of the Lake Victoria region.
The issue became personal for Rio Fish Co-Founder and CEO Angela Odero long before the company took shape. Her early exposure to research examining the relationship between jaboya and HIV transmission around Lake Victoria, together with experiences from her home community, shaped her understanding of the structural problems facing women in the fish trade.
Rio Fish was subsequently developed around a different proposition: women should be able to participate in the fish economy because they have access to productive assets, markets, skills, finance, technology, and reliable fish supply, not because they are required to enter exploitative relationships.
This principle remains central to the company’s approach to building a more inclusive fish value chain.