Selling children to save them
PEOPLE in Orissa's famine-hit regions are desperately selling their children -- not for the money but to ensure two square meals a day for them. So far, 16 cases of children being sold have been exposed in the local media, but the state government is yet to admit even one.
Kumari Bhoi, a Khando tribal of Bolangir district, says she sold her 8-year-old daughter for Rs 500 and if the situation doesn't improve, she will sell her second daughter, too. Last year, TB claimed her 3-year-old son and her 5-year-old daughter died of malnutrition.
At Shahpur village in Bhadrak, Bimbadhar Behera sold his seventh child, a 2-month-old boy, to Prafulla Jena for Rs 200. Behera says, "This was the only way to save him." When officials got wind of the sale, Behera was asked to deny the report, but refused. As a face-saving gesture, the administration asked Jena to "adopt" the child.
At Kalahandi's headquarters, Bhawanipatna, 21-year-old Golapi, a TB patient, sold her 2-month-old baby to a nurse for Rs 20 after her husband abandoned her and left her without any money. Chief minister Biju Patnaik's response to the sale: "Baby sold for Rs 20? Get me one, I will pay Rs 22."
Commenting on the "distress sales", Kalahandi district collector Ashok Dalwai says at least five cases of women being deserted by their husbands are reported every week. But he retorts, "We cannot take responsibility for every woman who has been abandoned. Their parents should look after them."
A clue to the situation perhaps lies in a statement attributed to Kiran Chandra Singh Deo, a cabinet minister who is alleged to have said selling babies was a western Orissa "tradition".