During a field visit to Bangladesh’s coastal areas, the Dhaka Tribune found many children hard at work in the physically exacting fish drying industry.
“I can barely remember when I last ate with my own hands. For months, my cracked hands have been giving off a liquid discharge because of long days spent drying fish,” 12-year-old child worker Yousuf Shaikh says.
Yousuf told the Dhaka Tribune that he suffers from searing pain in both his hands. “Usually, my hands get this way after I work in the fields continuously for six or seven months. This year it has come early because I now clean the fish besides putting them out to dry.”
Last year, Yousuf says he worked as a day labourer. This year he is working as bonded labourer – he has been promised Tk41,000 for nine months of work. “So I must work daily from morning to night even if I am injured.”
Yousuf has dried fish in Cox’s Bazar’s Nazirartek area since he was nine years old.
In Nazirartek, nearly 250 dried fish manufacturers employ between 70 and 80 workers, of whom a third are children, according to Shahadat Ullah, president of the Nazirartek Fishmongers’ Cooperative Society. There are an estimated 7,500 child workers in Nazirartek, the Dhaka Tribune found during a visit there organised by the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum.
The Dhaka Tribune found over 30,000 children working in the dried fish industry in Moheshkhali and Kutubdia upazilas in Cox’s Bazar district.
Most of these children work in the family business and start work as early as six years old.
The vast majority suffer from skin ailments connected with the work, including eczema, scabies and acne.
“The children of the coastal areas not only suffer from skin disease, but also diarrhoea and pneumonia because they work in fish drying fields,” children’s ward physician of the Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital, Dr Md Selim, told the Dhaka Tribune.
He said over the last several months, 47 children had been admitted to the hospital for diarrhoea and another 17 for pneumonia.
But the incidence of skin disease tops everything else.
Md Kamal, owner of Chowdhury Medical Store in Cox’s Bazar, said half of all prescriptions filled out each day are for skin problems, including skin cancer.
Sudhir Dash, owner of Nayan Medical Hall situated in front of the sadar hospital, echoed his competitor’s observation.
Dr Ratan Chowhdury, superintendent of the district sadar hospital, told the Dhaka Tribune that children are especially susceptible to skin disease because do not follow safety instructions and do not cover their hands while working.
Drying fish requires workers to toil under the sun in dry, salty patches of land and handle harsh ingredients like salt and chilli powder to preserve the fish, he said.
“Most patients don’t visit doctors until things get bad. They tend to self-medicate after talking to the pharmacists,” added Dr Ratan.
Often children ignore the pain, or feel compelled to.
Eleven-year-old Yeasmin was seen drying fish under the scorching sun with serious eczema on her elbow.
When asked why she was working despite the rash, she said: “If I do not work, what will I eat? Even my parents will not give me food if I do not earn some money.”
District Civil Surgeon Dr Md Kamar Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune said his staff were trying to raise awareness about skin disease and treatment options. “We have hospitals in each upazila and our doctors are trying their best to offer maximum support and care to patients, especially children.”
