Sunday, September 9, 2012

Desperate Indian Mother Who Gave Away Daughters



This is an article from BBC News about a woman from West Bengal, India that sold her children. The mother had three children and was on her own because she left her abusive husband. She was living on a railway station platform when a woman came up to her and asked to have one of her kids. The next day, she gave away her other two daughters. The media in India suggested that she sold them for 185 rupees, or $3.00. The mother didn’t want to give her away but felt like they would have a better living with someone else. The reporter that interviewed her couldn’t believe that the mother could just give her children away like that but the superintendent of a shelter in India wasn’t surprised and said that it happened often with poor or impoverished families. The children however, are usually sold for sex trafficking and are never seen again.

I think that it is really sad that the mother had to give up her children, but I understand why she did. She most likely didn’t have enough food to feed them and didn’t think that they deserved her lifestyle. She only wanted better for them and she thought that they were going to a good home so it was alright. The reporter in the story seemed awestruck at the fact that she could just give up her children, regardless of the circumstances. I understand the disbelief but if I was put in the mother’s shoes, I think that I could see myself giving up my children as well, as long as I knew that they were going to be better off without me. Of course it wouldn’t be easy, but a lot of parents, even in the United States, give their children up for adoption. It just might be different if I knew that they were going into sex trafficking or something like that where they would be harmed. (326)

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