Shipbreaking Worker

From: Homelands Productions
Series: WORKING
Length: 07:41

Sandy Tolan profiles a 13-year-old laborer at one of Bangladesh's giant shipbreaking yards. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Shipbreaking Worker
From: Homelands Productions

Babu_small

Ismael "Babu" Hussein works as an assistant in one of Bangladesh's shipbreaking yards, where armies of laborers dismantle old vessels the way ants devour a carcass. The work is perilous, the bosses abusive, the hours exhausting. Babu's reward? Just over two dollars a day, and nightmares about being crushed by giant sheets of steel. Pretty heavy stuff for a 13-year-old kid.

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Piece Description

Ismael "Babu" Hussein works as an assistant in one of Bangladesh's shipbreaking yards, where armies of laborers dismantle old vessels the way ants devour a carcass. The work is perilous, the bosses abusive, the hours exhausting. Babu's reward? Just over two dollars a day, and nightmares about being crushed by giant sheets of steel. Pretty heavy stuff for a 13-year-old kid.

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

Our next piece takes us to Bangladesh, and the city of Chittagong, where old tankers and cargo ships go to die. For a little more than two dollars a day, armies of laborers, using blowtorches and hammers, take ships apart plate by metal plate. A lot of those ships contain toxic wastes. Add to that the sheer danger of breaking down a huge old ship by hand, and it's hardly a place you'd expect to find children – much less child laborers. But they're everywhere. It's estimated that one out of every four workers in the shipbreaking yards in Chittagong is a child. As part of the WORKING series, Sandy Tolan brings us the diary of one of them. Meet Ismael Hussein – known to his family as Babu.

OUTRO:

Babu's diary was recorded and produced by Sandy Tolan. WORKING is produced by Homelands Productions in collaboration with Marketplace Radio. To see pictures and hear audio, go to working.homelands.org. While you're there, you can also tell the world what you think about YOUR job.