In Morocco, the difficult work of shrimp peelers

2024-01-25 15:01:01

Morocco has become a preferred destination for Dutch manufacturers for the shelling of gray shrimp sold on the European market, due to the cost of labor, which is lower than in the Netherlands. Seven thousand Moroccan peelers are employed in the country’s 18 shrimp peeling factories. A difficult, poorly paid and exclusively female job.

With our special correspondent in Tetouan, Nadia Ben Mahfoudh

The activity is recent in Morocco. It started in the early 1990s, but grew quickly. The shrimp make the journey to the Cherifian Kingdom to be peeled by 7,000 Moroccan peelers. Among them, Malika. “ I wake up at 4 a.m., I do my ablutions, my prayers, I eat something and I leave the house at 5 a.m. to take transport. And at 6:30 a.m. work begins », she describes. Malika is in her thirties, she is the mother of two girls aged 6 and 11 and for a little over a year, it has been the same ritual every morning.

When she arrives at the factory, she puts on her gloves and three or four layers of clothing to protect herself from the cold. The temperature in the factory is very low to keep the shrimp fresh. “ We take a bag of shrimp, place it on a coffee table, she explains. There are four women per table. And then we start peeling. »

Pay per kilogram

To obtain 1 kg of shrimp meat, you need approximately 3 kg of whole, unpeeled shrimp. “ Some shed four and a half, five, six or even seven kilos per dayshe specifies. It depends on your hands and your dexterity. I don’t reach five kilos. But it also depends on the shrimp. If they are big and beautiful, I can work well, when they are very small it is more complicated. »

Malika and her colleagues work ten hours a day, but are paid by the kilo of peeled shrimp. With 19.50 dirhams per kilo of chair, or around 1.80 euros, Malika does not reach the 200 euros salary at the end of the month. The minimum wage in Morocco is 280 euros.

« It is precisely this gap that justifies relocation. If there was not such a significant gap, there would be no relocation. The shrimp would be peeled on European territory », analyzes Mohamed Naji, economist specializing in fisheries and head of the fisheries engineering department at the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute.

95% of the 600 tonnes of shrimp caught each week in the North Sea are peeled in Larache, Nador, Tangier and Tetouan, before being sent back to the Netherlands and then resold to other European countries.

An activity attributed to women

This activity is only practiced by women in Tunisia. Which does not displease Malika. “ I left my mountain and came to live near Tetouan to work and support my daughters, allow them to study and ensure them a better future, explains Malika. It’s my first job and we’re among women, we’re better off with each other. Men would not be satisfied with this job and then they can do other jobs in construction or agriculture. »

But according to Mohamed Naji, this job is threatened with disappearing in the years to come: “ Automation has come into play. After several years of research and development, there are now machines for the automatic shelling of shrimp without altering the flesh. These are the 7,000 jobs in Morocco that are ultimately threatened. » A good number of industrialists currently prefer manual work, but reform is underway and automation is gaining more and more ground.

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