Courageous women harvesting cockle in Ichchankaduwa lagoon

Women ungagged in the cockle trade undergo innumerable hardships to keep the family fires burning 

A women displays a bounty of cockle

• The women have to boil the cockle alive, but they never think of the repercussions of committing sins because a life lived with bare minimum leaves them with no options 

By Hiran Priyankara Jayasinghe 

“We know it is a sin to put any living creature into boiling water, but we can’t help it. We are compelled to do so to make a living,” said a woman boiling live cockle (Matti) in a huge pot containing steaming water.

It is the harrowing experience of more than 50 woman who depend on harvesting cockle (Matti); a kind of shellfish in the Ichchankaduwa lagoon in Kalpitiya as their livelihood. They said they undergo innumerable hardships to maintain their children and invalid parents and in some instances bedridden husbands.

They, with their bare hands, stir the sandy lagoon bed and collect cockle which they boil alive and after removing the shells sell them to fish merchants or restaurants. They never think of the repercussions of committing sins in boiling cockles alive. However they lament on their ordeal which they endure in harvesting cockle in the lagoon bed. Regardless of injured fingers these women continue in the trade. They maintain that they are destined to depend on cockle harvesting for want of any other source of income or a livelihood. Inoka Sandya Kumari is a women who has been maintaining her family for several years with the meagre income from this trade. She said that those engaged in this trade were struggling for existence against all odds.

“My family has depended on cockle harvesting for a long time. It is a tedious and painful task. Quite often we suffer injuries to our fingers when stirring the sandy lagoon bed. My husband died long ago. Since then my daughter’s three children depend on what I earn from cockle harvesting. Her husband was a woodcutter and he died of a serious injury caused by the pruning knife. After he died, I have been nurturing my three grandchildren.  I have six grandchildren altogether and I have to take care of them. Rarely do we have two square meals a day,” Inoka said.

Another woman Kumudini Fernando said, “We are used to this arduous and painful trade for want of any other source of income. Even our children have been compelled to sacrifice their schooling due to economic constraints.  Everyone takes to cockle harvesting or else we would starve to death”. 

Sixty-year-old S.A. Gunawathie is an asthma patient who has been advised by doctors against exposing herself to the water. She said that she has no alternative, but to depend on lagoon life and cockle trade at the risk of her life.

“My sickness worsens when I step into the water to collect cockle. Once I almost died. Doctors warned me to stay clear of the water, but I have to make a living. We live a hand to mouth existence. A big potion of my earnings is spent on medicine,” Gunawathie said. 

These women further maintained that they live in temporary huts amid hardship for want of basic amenities. They added that living in a permanent house is just a dream for them.  Their main grievance was that their children have no facilities for education and that they would be destined to suffer a similar plight as their parents.