Afghanistan Reality Hitting World Stage: Parents Selling Children to Survive

For different reasons, the Taliban—and perhaps members of the Biden administration as well—would like to paint a rosy picture of life in Afghanistan these days, only a couple of months after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country.

Just published reports tell a much different story about the country once again controlled by the Middle Eastern terrorist group. And, it’s gut-wrenching for anyone with a conscience.

Dailymail.co.uk of London is reporting that “starving Afghan families are selling their children in a desperate bid for money” after the Taliban takeover halted foreign funds “that propped up the fragile economy,” leaving the country on the brink of collapse.

The Daily Mail story revealed that BBC reporter Yogita Limaye had traveled to a village outside of Herat in the western part of Afghanistan and learned from a mother there that she had sold her infant daughter for $500 to pay for food for her other children. The story said the buyer was an unarmed man who claimed he wanted to raise the girl to marry his son, but that “there is no guarantee of his intentions.”

The family received $250 up front, which is enough to feed them for a few months, and that he would “pay the rest when he returned to collect the baby “once she can walk.”

“My other children were dying of hunger, so we had to sell my daughter,” the mother told the BBC. “How can I not be sad? She is my child. I wish I did not have to sell my daughter.”

The baby’s father, the story continues, “used to make money by collecting rubbish but is now struggling to make any money.” He says the family had no choice than to sell the infant.

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

And this is not an isolated incident. The BCC reports that families have been forced to sell all of their possessions and, when that money has run out, some have been forced to do the unthinkable—sell their children. For decades, the country was dependent upon overseas aid for 40 percent of its GDP, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the “near-overnight collapse of its government” prior to the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover have put the Afghanistan on the “verge of an economic meltdown,” the Daily Mail reported.

The World Food Program’s website says that more than half of the population of Afghanistan—22.8 million people—have been put at risk by the Taliban for acute malnutrition and death, making for a very bleak future for citizens of that country. A million children, the WFP says, will die without “immediate treatment.”

The Daily Mail story revealed that world leaders have pledged some $1 billion in aid for Afghanistan, but there is no guarantee that the money would not be pilfered by the Taliban. {eoa}

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