Parents put up children for sale as Taliban plunge Afghans into acute poverty

Afghanistan is facing one of its worst humanitarian crisis under The Taliban as parents have started selling their children in order to get money to feed.

The development comes few months after the Taliban took control of the country following the withdrawal of American troops.

BBC reporter, Yogita Limaye, spoke to a mother who sold her infant for $500 to get money to feed the other children.

The buyer whose name was not mentioned and intentions not guaranteed, claimed he wanted to raise the girl to marry his son.

“He paid $250 upfront, enough to feed the family for a few months, and will pay the rest when he returns to collect the baby ‘once she can walk,” the woman was quoted to have said.

“My other children were dying of huger so we had to sell my daughter. How can I not be sad? She is my child. I wish I didn’t have to sell my daughter.”

The father, who used to collect rubbish and is unable to earn any money now, said they had to do because they had no choice.

“We are starving. Right now we have no flour, no oil at home. We have nothing. My daughter doesn’t know what her future will be. I don’t know how she’ll feel about it. But I had to do it.”

Eight children were reported to have starved to death in the capital of Kabul this week.

A house cleaner in western Afghanistan named Saleha, sold her 3-year-old daughter to a man to whom she owed a $550 debt.

Saleha, 40, receives 70 cents a day from her job, and her husband doesn’t work, according to Wallstreet Journal.

“If life continues to be this awful, I will kill my children and myself,” Saleha told the Journal. “I don’t even know what we will eat tonight.”

“I will try to find money to save my daughter’s life,” husband Abdul Wahab said.

Khalid Ahmad, the lender, told the Journal he had to accept the 3-year-old girl to settle the debt.

“I also don’t have money. They haven’t paid me back,” he said.

Daily Trust