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Privatization Policies and Fishermen's Conditions

for some time now, the Egyptian government is implementing what is called "privatization policies" which mean that the state is withdrawing from all of its' activities related production and open the way for the free market policies to price goods and services.
For example, in the industrial sector, the state has sold most of the public sector companies, and these companies are now called "the public business sector companies" as part of them are owned by the private sector.
In the agricultural sector, the state has canceled it's subsidies and stopped providing farmers with the necessary requirements for agrarian production, in addition to amending the law that organizes the relation between the tenants and landlords, which allowed landlords to determine the rental value according to the market prices.
In the fishing sector, the state has rented most of the Egyptian lakes in the form of fish farms to some investors, which have led to the decrease of water resources that small fishermen depended on to make a living, as this has led to the deterioration of their conditions and incomes, because there aren't enough water areas to fish in. Nowadays, about 2 million fishermen fish in only one quarter of the water area that they used to fish in before renting the lakes. For example: El Manzala lake has an area of 314 thousand feddans, but fishermen have only 34 thousand feddans to fish in. Edko lake is estimated with 45 thousand feddans, but fishermen have only 13 thousand fedans to fish in. we can see that the water area is decreasing, while the number of fishermen is increasing, which also increase conflict and violence among the people.
The privatization policies lead to:
• Stop cleaning lakes.
• The lakes are taken over by fish farm owners in violation of the law
• Stealing the small fishes put in the lakes to multiply.
• Arbitrary actions by the water surface police against small fishermen by arresting them and confiscating their nets and boats in violation of the constitution.
• Pollution of the lakes by agrarian and sewage drainages.
• The absence of the role of fishermen's cooperative associations
Violence against fishermen must be stopped, all of the necessary legal procedures must be taken to stop the violations committed against fishermen and the natural resources, the penal legislations must be amended in order to increase the punishment for all of those who commit such violations and decrease punishment for other violations, like warning those who forget their licenses instead of confiscating their nets and boats. The state must guarantee fishermen their right in participation in the decision making process to build rust between the fishermen and the government by allowing them to establish associations that could guarantee their rights.

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