CHILD LABOR IN KARACHI

Children are peeling the expensive prawns that you might eat in restaurants around the world! They work in disgusting conditions for a pittance, but you probably pay a premium price.

These pictures show the extent of the problem at the Karachi Fish Harbour (see other posts). The major haul from the Arabian Sea is prawns and these have been the bulk of the now-banned exports (of course they still go to less particular countries).

The children are probably from Bengali families who have migrated illegally to Pakistan, The Karachi Fish Harbour itself is run by the provincial government of Sindh with these peeling sheds kept by the private sector.

Photos: courtesy of Robert Lindley, Karachi, Pakistan August 2008

CONTINUING WORK AT KARACHI FISH HARBOUR

Karachi Fish Harbour is still filthy! Despite all our efforts to work with the local authorities, the main exit point for Pakistan’s seafood is still in a disgusting condition. Slack management, vested interests and lack of urgency to find funds mean that technical solutions proposed by ourselves and teams from other agencies including UNIDO are not being adopted. Meanwhile the photograph taken in August this year shows the current state of the Harbour. The rubbish is floating on water over which fresh fish passes to the factory in the background. So much for HACCP!

FoodWorks has been working at Karachi Fish Harbour in collaboration with Robert Lindley, an international expert on fisheries, as part of an on-going contract with the Competitiveness Support Fund. The aim of the project is to upgrade and restructure the Harbour with a special focus on re-establishing seafood exports to the EU banned last year on the grounds of lack of hygiene. It's an uphill struggle to say the least!

A full set of reports on Karachi Fish Harbour prepared by Robert Lindley with support from Geoff Q-Bastin are to be found at:

http://www.competitiveness.org.pk/publications_policy_studies.php

Photo: courtesy of Robert Lindley, August 2008