Hunting scorpions: Children’s livelihood in Tunisia to support their families

With the deterioration of the Tunisian economy and the decline in job opportunities, where the unemployment rate reached 16.1% as of March 2023, children under the age of 12 are hunting and looking for scorpions in desert areas, especially in the rural south, to sell them at minimal prices to support their families.

Due to its desert terrains, Tunisia witnesses a spread of poisonous reptiles and insects coming out of hibernation in the summer, especially in the central and southern regions of the country like Sidi Bouzid, Gafsa, and Mahdia, Kasserine, and Medenine. However, this was seen as a source of income for poor families, who suffer from the sting of the economic crisis.

The phenomenon of hunting scorpions and snakes is old in the North African country, where hundreds of different species of scorpions and snakes live, serving the industry of antidote production. However, a children's rights organization warned against exploiting children in the scorpion trade.

In a statement on August 8, the International Organization for the Protection of Mediterranean Children, a Geneva-based Tunisian organization, accused the state-own Institut Pasteur of making use of children to hunt scorpions needed for the venom trade.

The hunting of scorpions by children has mushroomed across Tunisia, said the organization in the statement, noting that those children endanger their lives by hunting this predatory animal in scorching heat waves and in darkness in desert areas.

Hunted scorpions are being sold to traffickers who, in turn, sell them to Institut Pasteur at very high prices, the organization said, adding, “[The institute] is involved in this crime which is perpetrated against those minors.”

The children’s organization called upon the Tunisian authorities to put an end to this phenomenon and prevent the institute from purchasing these scorpions. It also urged parents to prevent their children from this type of trade.

Speaking to Independent Arabia, the organization’s chairwoman, Reem Belkhaziry, said the organization obtained a video for a group of children (under the age of 12), led by an elderly man, hunting scorpions for minimal prices to support their families financially. She added that the scorpions are being sold to the institute.

Tunisia has been suffering from an economic crisis for more than a decade. The World Bank said on March 30 that the Tunisian economy decelerated after 2011, as gross domestic product (GDP) growth went down to 1.7% on average between 2011 and 2019. Other global crises like the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine have overburdened the country’s economy. Additionally, the poverty rate reached 16.6% in 2021, up from 15.2% in 2015, while the rate of sever poverty remained unchanged, according to a survey conducted by Tunisia’s National Survey on Household Budget, Consumption, and Standard of Living in February 2023.

In response to the organization’s “claims”, Institut Pasteur Director-General Al Hashemy Al Wazir denied the accusations, saying in comments to Shems FM that the institute has not purchased or taken scorpions or snakes since last year because it has enough stock to produce antidotes for scorpion and snake venoms.

Wazir said that the institute has nothing to do with child labor, adding that the children’s organization did not contact the institute for inquiries and clarification before making these “groundless accusations.”

In 2016, France 24 made a short documentary showing a group of children and adults searching for scorpions beneath rocks and inside burrows to be sold later. 

More than 1,500 species of scorpions, including the most dangerous North African scorpion, Androctonus australis Hector, live in Tunisia, Al Riyadh newspaper reported in 2008. However, Hassan bin Al-Sheikh, a researcher in biological sciences at the Faculty of Medicine in the coastal city of Monastir, said that there are 152 species of scorpions that threaten Tunisians in the summer, KUNA reported on June 20, 2003.