In Sri Lanka’s north, a search for livelihoods and loved ones

For Sri Lanka’s north, whose economy was already set back by war and poor recovery, the current economic downturn is proving debilitating. Meera Srinivasan reports on the affected people, especially women who are juggling jobs, housework and care, while persisting with their struggle for justice

In March this year, women of Thambaddy village were thanking their stars for the good crab season. It ensured they were employed throughout the month at the local crab factory. Those who put in longer hours made some extra money that helped them cope with the spiralling cost of essentials. Barely three months later, residents of this coastal village in Kayts island, off the northern Jaffna peninsula and connected to it by a causeway, are on the brink of starvation.

As Sri Lanka faces acute shortages of food, fuel, LPG, and medicine in the midst of a crushing economic downturn, people here have witnessed their livelihoods vanish. With no kerosene available in the market, the men are unable to take their boats out to sea to fish. And without the catch, the women who make a living by removing crab shells are jobless. So are other villagers who subsist on allied livelihoods such as cleaning, transporting or selling the fish locally. While most of the island’s southern fishermen use large boats that run on diesel, 90% of those living in the north use small boats that run on kerosene. As of today, neither fuel is available.

“In May, the factory only offered us work on nine days,” says Sugathevan Sailathevi of the early yet sure signs of a rapid breakdown of their rural economy, still beaten years after the civil war in the Tamil-majority region ended in 2009. Poverty and joblessness were entrenched in the local economy well before this crisis arrived to make things worse. Families here were displaced at least twice during the war. Many moved all the way to Mullivaikkal on the north-eastern coast, the site of the final, gory battle between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the armed forces. They witnessed scores of fellow Tamil civilians perish in the shelling, or forcibly disappear, with their whereabouts not known till date.

Sailathevi’s husband has been unwell and unable to work after he was assaulted by soldiers during the war, not uncommon among Tamil civilians who the army assumed had links with militant groups. Since then, she has single-handedly raised four daughters. The family’s enduring economic hardships forced her two older daughters to discontinue their education. Now, they too work in the crab factory with their mother. Together, the three women run the household and support the education of the two younger girls. “This job was everything to us,” Sailathevi says, fighting tears. As post-war reconstruction efforts of successive governments have evidently failed to sustain livelihoods and durably revive the regional economy, the sole factory in this isolated village is precious. And its closure, understandably devastating.

Over the last two months, the family has been surviving on one meal a day. “We just can’t go on without jobs. That is our only source of income,” Sailathevi says, sitting in the verandah of her friend’s modest home, minutes away from the factory whose tall, metallic gates are closed.

For women like her, each day of the job matters as wages are tied to the number of days of labour. The women must work at least 25 days to be eligible for a basic monthly pay of LKR 16,500 (roughly ₹3,590), as they boost Sri Lanka’s lucrative crab trade. Rarely affordable to locals, Jaffna crabs are a delicacy and make up about 10% of the island’s seafood export basket. In 2021, the island netted $318 million, a record high, from seafood exports when foreign reserves were fast depleting due to a balance of payments crisis. The 120 women employed at the factory must work all day, standing in a heavily air-conditioned room, to make LKR 640 (about ₹140) for the day, if they manage to reach the target of 4 kg of crab meat. Their wage is much like the scanty meat — just about 20 grams per crab — that they scrape off the hard-shelled creatures, toiling long hours.

“The work is not easy, but it has been vital for us, so we can’t complain,” says a young worker, Tharmaraja Thavapriya, underplaying the difficulties of the job and unaware of her contribution to the national economy. Be it tea or garment exports, or remittances from domestic workers in West Asian countries, all major foreign exchange earning sectors are powered by the labour of women like her.