At the entrance to the fish market in Joal-Fadiouth, a coastal town in central Senegal, a group of women have set up shop under the shade of a small pavilion. A few years ago, they say, the market would have been bustling with ice-cream sellers, salt vendors and horse-drawn carts delivering freshly caught fish to the women, who would set about sun-drying, salting and sorting the catch into affordable portions for local families to buy.
Today, trade is dead, says Aissatou Wade, one of the remaining small-scale fish processors left in the town. “Without fish [to sell], we have no money to send our children to school, buy food or get help if we fall ill,” she says.
