News
Photo focus: Pity the cracker maker
Fireworks and crackers sell like hot cakes during festive seasons
No festivity -whether religious, national or private- is complete without the lighting of firecrackers.
The Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebration is no exception.
Sadly hardly anyone spares a thought for the poor worker engaged in the manufacture of these fire crackers.
The fireworks sold in the local market are all locally manufactured.
In most parts of the world new and safer techniques have been adopted in the manufacture of crackers and fireworks. However in Kimbulapitiya and Negombo where most crackers are manufactured, the poor workers still use his or her unprotected fingers at all stages of manufacture.
Workers wear neither gloves or any other form of protective clothing to protect them from the poisonous substance which goes into the manufacture of fireworks and which rub off on different parts of their anatomy.
Our photographer captured the process of manufacture. Some wrap thick paper to create the outer covering of the cracker. Others fill the container with gunpowder. Another group pack it in tightly and finally yet others cap the cracker to ensure a louder explosion.
The fire cracker is hand-tooled at every stage of manufacture with no protection offered to the workers.
A worker wearing no protective gear packs gunpowder into the casing of a cracker
Spare a thought for the poor worker
Irrespective of gender or sex all workers are exposed to the poisonous substance which go to create the big bang!
