Afghan baby sold for $500 to feed her family: Desperate parents reveal they’ve given their daughter to a stranger ‘who wants her to marry his son’ – or risk their other children starving to death
- Starving Afghan families are selling their children in a desperate bid for money
- BBC spoke to mother who sold her daughter for $500 to pay for food for her sons
- World Food Program warned 22.8million people, will face acute food insecurity
Starving Afghan families are selling their children in a desperate bid for money after the Taliban takeover put an end to the foreign funds that propped up the economy, a BBC report reveals.
Reporter Yogita Limaye travelled to a village outside of Herat, in the west of the country, and spoke to a mother who sold her infant daughter for $500 to pay for food for her other children.
The buyer is an unnamed man who claimed he wanted to raise the girl to marry his son, there is no guarantee.
Reporter Yogita Limaye travelled to a village outside of Herat, in the west of the country, and spoke to a mother who sold her infant daughter, pictured, for $500 to pay for food
The parents explained they had no food for their other children, three pictured with their father. The man buying the girl paid $250 of the $500 and will return to collect her
He paid $250 as a down payment, enough to feed the family for a few months, and will return to collect the baby once she can walk.
The World Food Program warned Monday that more than half the population of Afghanistan, around 22.8 million people, will face acute food insecurity from November.
‘My other children were dying of huger so we had to sell my daughter,’ the mother said. ‘How can I not be sad? She is my child. I wish I didn’t have to sell my daughter.’
Her husband, who used to make money by collecting rubbish but has fallen on hard times since the Taliban takeover, added: ‘We are starving.
‘Right now we have no flour, no oil at home. We have nothing. My daughter has no idea what her future will be. I don’t know how she will feel about it. But I had to do it.’
They are just one of many families who feel they have no choice if they want to sell their children. In the time the BBC crew was in the village, they were approached by another family who asked if they wanted to buy one of their children.
The mother, pictured, felt she had no other choice but to sell her daughter for the sake of her family. Her daughter will live with them until she can walk and will then be taken away
Child marriage has been practised in Afghanistan for centuries, but war and climate change-related poverty have driven many families to resort to striking deals earlier and earlier in girls’ lives.
Boys’ parents can drive a harder bargain and secure younger girls, spacing out the repayments.
The issue has been exacerbated since the Taliban takeover three months ago. International funds which propped up Afghanistan’s fragile economy have been stopped as the world debates how to deal with the new regime.
This is also having a dangerous impact on the healthcare system, which was almost entirely funded by foreign money.
Now medical staff are not being paid, and there are no funds to buy medical supplies.
One mother, whose young twins are at the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Herat told Limaye: ‘Two of my children are facing death because we don’t have any money.
‘I want the world to help the Afghan people. I don’t want any other mother to see their children suffer like this.’
The United Nations has issued a stark warning – that millions will die if urgent aid does not reach the country soon.