Kids up for sale: 9 yr olds@Rs 8,000

[suchandra]

People must be really broken hearted to give away their kids for a couple of bugs.

 

Pawan Bali

CNN-IBN

http://www.ibnlive.com/article.php?id=7412&section_id=3

Posted Tuesday , March 28, 2006 at 13:19

Updated Tuesday , March 28, 2006 at 15:14

Talwara (J& K): Rs 8,000 for a nine year old, Rs 10,000 for a 13 year old and if you can afford a little more money, you might just be able to strike a deal at Rs 15,000 for a grown-up teenager.

These are the prices parents in the Talwara migrant camp in Jammu and Kashmir are demanding for their children.

Krishna Devi has sold her three daughters for Rs 20,000. The girls are now working as labourers and household maids. When we asked her what made her take the step, she says it was poverty.

"I have sold my daughters. What could have I done? We needed money. It’s been eight years now and we have not been able to repay that money and get our children back. My husband works as a labourer, but the money he earns is hardly enough to feed my other two children," a resident of the Talwara migrant camp, Krishna Devi, says

The Talwara camp comprises of over 640 families who have migrated from Doda, Poonch-Rajouri because of militant attacks. Those already staying in the camp say over 200 children from the camp have either been sold or mortgaged for a few thousand rupees. Some of those who were taken outside the state have not even returned.

"It was a deal of Rs 8,000, but we never got the money after working for a month and seven days. My son’s dead body was found as they had killed him," another camp resident, Tichoo Devi, who had also sold her son, adds.

When the CNN-IBN team questioned local officials about the issue of the children being sold, they denied such a situation. But the ground reality as was witnessed by the team was very different and never near to the situation projected by the offficials.

The children in these migrant camps have a difficult option, but it is even more difficult for their parents. To bring up one child, the other has to be sold. And it is the cruel curse of poverty that's putting the young lives at stake.