ISSUE 007, December 1-15, 2009
Unfiltered, uninhibited…. just the gruesome truth
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December 1-15, 2009
ISSUE 007
A bimonthly on-line newspaper by the Media Diversity Centre, a project of African Woman and Child Feature Service
Poverty driving children from school to fishing in lake region
Boys fishing by Lake Victoria. Many young boys of primary school age have dropped out of school to go into fishing to supplement family income. Picture: Nicholas Odhiambo
By Nicholas Odhiambo Jeremy Ochieng’ is not a happy father. His only son, George Ochieng’ left school to go into fishing three years ago. The young man had just enrolled in Form One then. “Though I could pay his school fees, the boy, just like many others in this area, decided to leave school,” laments Ochieng. But George, who now considers himself a grown up, has even gone ahead and gotten married. The young man looks at the situation differently. He says his decision was driven purely by the need to support himself as his father was too poor to do so. “Imagine sometimes we had no food at home and it was mother who would, occasionally, ensure we got at least one meal in a day,” says the young man. George’s case is not unique. Many of his peers in the vicinity of the Lake Victoria have taken the same route in their desperate attempt at escaping poverty and destitution. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be the familiar story of jumping from the frying pan into a fire as the old lure of fishing has long lost its glow, turning the trade into a worthless undertaking for majority
of fishermen. According to 76-year-old Peter Mang’ira, a resident of Luanda-Konyango beach in Nyatike District, the lake, which is now shrinking, has lost its glory. During its heyday, no child would go to the lake because there was enough food for every family. “The quantity of fish that we used to get from the lake for food and sale was great and we could not allow children to go fishing ,” he says, adding that the children’s main chore was schoolwork. Now that fish quantities have declined, many families living by the shores of the lake have been rendered poor. Many children are dropping out of school as they try to help supplement family income. The population of the common fish species such as the highly prized Nile Perch have reduced drastically while other species like the Salmon have disappeared completely aggravating the problem further. “Nile perch, Salmon and other species that used to fetch a lot of money for fishmongers have moved to River Nile (that partly has sources from Lake Victoria).” Mang’ira says it’s partly due to this
phenomenon that an increasing number of fishermen have resorted to using small nets to catch under-age fish. “There is no fish in the lake. This is why we even use mosquito nets to trap any kind of fish swimming in the lake,” says Willis Okoth, a fisherman in Suba District. Other factors that have contributed to school-drop outs in the area include the long drought and famine that have afflicted most of the country. “Rains here are not promising and this is why we cannot farm. The only solution is going to the lake, though we get little from there. However, it is still better than nothing,” says Joel Omondi, a young man who dropped out of school last year at Standard Six following his father’s death. The scenario plays out in Mbita, Nyatike, Rachuonyo and Homa Bay districts. “The boys think they have matured. You cannot even punish them for wrong doing because they will not allow you. Some are our age-mates and are hard to deal with,” says Ms Caroline Achieng’, a teacher in one of the schools in Homa Bay District. Mrs Mary Bunde, a human rights activist in Mbita District, who is attached to
DEVLINK, an NGO fighting for the rights of women in the fishing community, is worried about the rate at which pupils are dropping out of school to go into fishing. “The Government should do something about this. It is becoming serious around the lake region. Most of them have even decided to smoke hard drugs,” warns Bunde. The Homa Bay District Children’s officer Mr Joseph Ng’eno echoes the same sentiments adding that early marriages for school girls in the region is another consequence of the poverty and destitution. “Poverty in families gets aggravated especially where a father has died. It is the sons who are forced to help their jobless mothers in supplementing family income,” he says. Lack of fish in the lake has also made many women resort to sale of dried fish skeletons from local fish processing factories in Homa Bay and Midas in Migori District. “We go for the skeleton which we grind into powder that is sold to chicken farmers. Some people also eat the skeleton because they are cheap,” says Ms Joyce Aloo a fish skeleton trader in Homa Bay town.