Allegations were also made at the workshop that women were also physically abused at their work places in shrimp enclosures.

The workshop was jointly organised by two NGOs--Centre For Women and Children Studies (CWCS) and Biswas Foundation, supported by Australian High Commission Dhaka. It was held at the officers club in the town with Biswas Foundation chairman Abdur Rahman in the chair.

Satkhira Deputy Commissi-oner Mohammad Kefayetullah was the chief guest while Police Superintendent Mirza Abdullahel Kafi and CWCS president Prof Ishrat Shamim of Dhaka University and were special guests.

It was addressed by, among others, Unicef Representative Shabnaz Zaherin, Sadar police station officer-in-charge Safiqur Rahman, Arifa Rahman, journalists Subhas Chowdhury and Mostafizur Rahman Ujjal, shrimp cultivator Talib Hossain and women and child workers Anowara Khatun and Sonia Khatun.

Narrating the plights of women workers, Anowara Khatun said, they get Tk 25 to 30 a day while a male worker gets Tk 65 to 70. Women also face physical abuse at times at work places.

Child worker Sonia Khatun, a student of class seven at Debhata Pilot High School she works in a shrimp enclosure to add to the family income but gets lass than half of what a man gets for the same work.

The speakers said women and children account for at least half of the work in shrimp industries in Satkhira district, which earn a foreign exchange of over Tk 2000 crore a year. But they are deprived of their real wages.

Government officials, teachers, journalists, social workers, cultural activists, public representatives, NGO activists and shrimp cultivators, participated in the workshop.