What Poverty can make people do

[DaRk WaVe]

I Request members not to make this thread a ABC vs XYZ Thread, Please

Poverty is a curse to humanity, the pain which poverty inflicts on humans can be only be felt who goes through it... here i am going to quote articles of what poverty can make humans do, i recommend u also quote articles and discuss the ways to eradicate this curse & bring these people in bring stream after all these poverty stricken people are Humans, every day around us we see these people but we have never ever thought about them their lives & their sufferings we are too busy thinking about our own 'so called problems', these people need our attention because they are a part of this very society & these people if not catered properly can be a big threat to coherence of society & the elites use them for their vote banks come to power make big promises & then forget them & with all stubbornness & without shame they return to same those old ppl to whom they had promises & those poverty stricken ppl dont have any option but to vote for them again, Girls who are sold by parents coz they don't have money for them become whores at age as low as 12 years!! Mothers who sell their bodies to feed the bodies of their children, black market of organs & all that extremely pathetic stuff, have we ever thought about the people who are born on foot path, live on foot path & then die there....


EXTREME POVERTY FORCES A MOTHER TO SELL HER BABY
Jalandhar, Jan.30 (ANI):Forced by extreme poverty,a mother of 7 children Anita Sharma, sold off her 5 month old baby girl to another woman who is unable to conceive.The incident which is considered the first of its kind in Punjab,has surprised everyone,even the police officials.However,Anita denies the charges saying she gave her baby so as to bring happiness in someone's life.Meanwhile,police is investigating the case.
Extreme poverty forces a mother to sell her baby - Snoop News from India - SmasHits.com


Filipino girl, 11, hangs herself in despair because family were poor

Filled with despair at her poverty-stricken life in a shack, an 11-year-old girl wrote in a diary how she wished for new shoes and jobs for her parents ? then slipped a rope around her neck and hanged herself.
Little Mariannet Amper left the diary and a letter under her pillow, discovered when her shocked parents found her dangling on a thin nylon rope from a beam in their plywood shack near Davao City, 600 miles south of the Philippines capital of Manila.

The sad case of the schoolgirl who could no longer face the shame and deprivation of life in the slums has highlighted the millions who live in squalor on less than 50p a day in the northern Pacific nation.
In the letter, Mariannet said she wished only for a bicycle, bag, new shoes and jobs for her parents so she could finish primary school.
And in her diary the girl, whose family live in a flimsy hut that has no running water or electricity, told how she missed school and did not even have the money to go to church.
Her grief-stricken father, Isabelo Amper, 49, a jobless construction worker, said Mariannet had asked him for 100 pesos (£1) which she needed for school projects.
"I told her I did not have the money, but I would ask my wife if she could get it for her," he said. "The next morning I was able to get a small cash advance but by the time I got home Mariannet was dead."
As he and his stunned wife, Magdalena, went through their daughter's pathetic belongings they came across the letter and the diary.
In an entry for October 5, she wrote, in a reference to school: "It feels as if we've been absent for a month. They're not counting my absences any more. I just realised that Christmas is just around the corner."
Isabelo recalled that in that week Mariannet skipped school as they did not have money for her food and transport.
"We didn't have any money and I didn't want Mariannet and her younger brother, Reynald, to walk to school," he said.
On October 14, Marianet wrote: "We were not able to hear mass because we did not have fare money and my dad was sick with fever. So, my mom and I just washed clothes."
In the letter she left, Mariannet wrote a "wish list".
"I wish for new shoes, a bag and jobs for my mother and father. My dad does not have a job and my mom just gets laundry jobs.
"I would like to finish my schooling and I would like very much to buy a new bike."
Fighting back tears, Isabelo said: "We never knew that our daughter had dreams for us." His wife, he said, worked only part-time, earning just 25p a day packing noodles, supported by a further 50p earned doing laundry jobs.
"As for me, I can't get work," said Isabelo. "I'm already old. No-one would want to hire me."
The couple, who live in a hillside shanty town, are now left with only their young son Reynald. Five other children are in their teens and twenties and have started families of their own ? again in slum areas.
A neighbour said of them: "The Amper family are always being discriminated against. They're poor, the kids are dirty and the other kids don't want to play with them. Because they're very poor, they've been rejected by their neighbours."
The tragic case came to light on the day President Gloria Arroyo told a business forum that her economic changes were bearing fruit.
"The common people are now feeling the benefits of a growing economy," she said.
But the Social Weather Stations institute, which monitors the poor, said that some nine million Filipino families rated themselves poor and many of those experienced "severe hunger" in recent months.
And for a shamed little girl who hanged herself with a nylon rope in a shack, government assurances meant nothing.
Filipino girl, 11, hangs herself in despair because family were poor | Mail Online

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Farmers sell wives after crops fail

North Indian farmers are selling their wives to survive, it has been revealed.
Left without money due to failing crops, debt-ridden farmers in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, have reportedly been selling their wives to money lenders for Rs 4,000 - 12,000 (£50-150).
The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price that she fetches, it was claimed.
The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading "Vivaha Anubandh" meaning Marriage Contract. Once the new "husband" is tired of the woman, she is allegedly sold to another man.
The National Commission for Women (NCW) is now sending a team to investigate the reports.
Girija Vyas, chief of the NCW, said: "It is awful and unbelievable that it still happens in the country, and that too in Uttar Pradesh where the chief minister is a woman.
"We are sending a team to find out the details and have asked for the report within 24 hours."
She added that the commission had also written a letter to the state's chief minister.
One of the victims said: "My husband sold me to another man for Rs 8,000 (£100) only. My buyer took me to the court to make our wedding look legal. During the trip I got the chance to escape."
In most cases, the women are illiterate and cannot read what is written in the "contract".
A farmer who helped expose the situation to the Indian media said he is now being harassed.
"I was summoned to the police station and questioned," the man who is known only as Kalicharan said.
"I told them I had spoken to the media because no one was listening to us. But they threatened me and said I was lying. My wife was also called to the police station."
With reports suggesting that thousands of farmers in the region are involved, the situation has spiralled into a major political crisis.
Opposition parties are blaming the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government led by chief minister Mayawati for the problem.
The state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi said: "It is a painful situation. I am sending a team of Congress workers to help these women."
A spokesman for leading opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, said: "Both the BSP-led state government and the Congress at the centre are responsible for this.
"The centre has been talking of creating a separate authority for Bundelkhand while some factions want a state. Nobody is helping these farmers."
Erratic rainfall in the region this year is one of the main causes of failing crops.
Farmers sell wives after crops fail - Asia, World - The Independent

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Poverty Forces Former Sport Champion into Flesh Trade​

Poverty Forces Former Sport Champion into Flesh Trade

Nisha Shetty, who once held her head high with the pride of winning a silver medal at the national level, is hiding her face underneath the scarf with shame.

Six years after winning the medal for a high jump, Shetty finds herself locked in Raipur Women's Prison after she was caught in a sex racket.


Abject poverty, unemployment and her husband's death in 2007 forced the former athlete into the flesh trade who needed money to raise her five-year-old child and fulfilling her daily needs.

Prostitution was the only way left for the 26-year-old mother to turn to after she was unable to land a job for herself despite having a shining sports background.

She was caught along with two other girls and three boys including a pimp from a posh colony in Devendra Nagar in Raipur.

Her sports background was discovered during a police interrogation.

"During interrogation, one girl said that she was a national champion. She was a long and high jump champion," said Manisha Thakur, District Superintendent Police, Women's Jail.

Shetty who hails from Assam represented the state in athletics at the national games in 1998. This is where she met her late husband, a football player, and got married to him later.

He died due to kidney failure after he became alcoholic and suffered from depression for not being able to find a job.

Shetty who had dreamt of a bright career following her achievements is only faced by harsh realities of life and no financial support from anywhere.​

Poverty forces Gaza's children from school​

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/poverty-forces-gaza-s-children-from-school.htm

Concerns have been raised about the number of children living in war-torn Gaza who are skipping school and turning to crime.

Poverty in the area has seen hundreds of youngsters reject their education and resort to working or earning money from illegal activities to support their families.

According to a Reuters report, children are resorting to more and more dangerous measures to earn extra cash including entering dangerous 'no-go areas' to steal scrap metal where they are at risk of coming under fire.

Speaking to Reuters, 13-year-old Ahmed revealed that he earns the equivalent of £2.50 a day selling sweets to motorists at one of Gaza's busiest intersections.

He added that he was the bread-winner for his 12-member family and that their situation was such that they could only afford to eat meat once a month.

Children have, for many families, become the only source of income, with unemployment in the area reaching around 60 per cent of the population.

Psychologist Nabil Taha, a teacher at local care centre, told the news agency: "Theft is the most recurring crime in light of the economic conditions.

"Poverty and unemployment are the main reasons for the bad behaviour of the children."

He added: "Most of the boys' fathers are unemployed, there is no work and there is no food, so they are forced to steal."

Around one billion children are living below the poverty line across the globe with almost 640 million having no shelter and at least 400 million living without safe water.​

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Man kills five children over poverty, attempts suicide

GHAZIABAD - Driven by poverty, a truck driver here allegedly killed his five children, critically injured his wife and then attempted suicide, police said Monday.
Ravindra Verma, 38, and his wife Durgawati, 35, were found with stab wounds in their house in Rosy Colony by his mother around 7 a.m. Monday. The five children were lying dead, police said.
Verma and his wife were rushed to a hospital, from where Durgawati was shifted to hospital in New Delhi. Their condition was said to be critical.
“Prima facie it seems to be a case of depression. Ravindra confessed he had no work for two months. So he killed his children and tried to kill his wife and himself,” said police officer R.K. Gautam.
The children were identified as Anjani, 14, Preeti, 10, Mona, 8, Devraj, 5, and nine-month-old Lucky.
They appear to have been killed with some blunt instrument. Their bodies have been sent for post mortem examination.
Originally a resident of Swan district in Bihar, Verma moved to Ghaziabad about 15 years ago and started working as a truck driver.
Man kills five children over poverty, attempts suicide (Lead)

Destitute Filipino mother kills children

Police in the Philippines say poverty appears to have driven a jobless woman to kill her three young children by giving them toilet cleaner to drink before she killed herself the same way.
Senior Superintendent Raul Sandoval said the children, aged from two to four, died before reaching hospital, while their 32-year-old mother died while being treated.
He said the woman, Janeth Ponce, left a suicide note in her one-room shack in northern Laguna province's Magdalena township.
She asked relatives to forgive her and care for her seven-year-old son who was sleeping in his grandmother's house at the time of the incident.
Police said her husband, a construction worker in Manila, had not sent money for a month.
One third of 90 million Filipinos live below the poverty line of $US1 ($A1.25) a day.
Poverty News Blog: Destitute Filipino mother kills children

 

[Comet]

Farmers sell wives after crops fail

North Indian farmers are selling their wives to survive, it has been revealed.
Left without money due to failing crops, debt-ridden farmers in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, have reportedly been selling their wives to money lenders for Rs 4,000 - 12,000 (£50-150).
The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price that she fetches, it was claimed.
The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading "Vivaha Anubandh" meaning Marriage Contract. Once the new "husband" is tired of the woman, she is allegedly sold to another man.
The National Commission for Women (NCW) is now sending a team to investigate the reports.
Girija Vyas, chief of the NCW, said: "It is awful and unbelievable that it still happens in the country, and that too in Uttar Pradesh where the chief minister is a woman.
"We are sending a team to find out the details and have asked for the report within 24 hours."
She added that the commission had also written a letter to the state's chief minister.
One of the victims said: "My husband sold me to another man for Rs 8,000 (£100) only. My buyer took me to the court to make our wedding look legal. During the trip I got the chance to escape."
In most cases, the women are illiterate and cannot read what is written in the "contract".
A farmer who helped expose the situation to the Indian media said he is now being harassed.
"I was summoned to the police station and questioned," the man who is known only as Kalicharan said.
"I told them I had spoken to the media because no one was listening to us. But they threatened me and said I was lying. My wife was also called to the police station."
With reports suggesting that thousands of farmers in the region are involved, the situation has spiralled into a major political crisis.
Opposition parties are blaming the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government led by chief minister Mayawati for the problem.
The state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi said: "It is a painful situation. I am sending a team of Congress workers to help these women."
A spokesman for leading opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, said: "Both the BSP-led state government and the Congress at the centre are responsible for this.
"The centre has been talking of creating a separate authority for Bundelkhand while some factions want a state. Nobody is helping these farmers."
Erratic rainfall in the region this year is one of the main causes of failing crops.
Farmers sell wives after crops fail - Asia, World - The Independent

This is the most horrible situation when humans are being sold.

I hate the role of Political Parties, they only put allegations and do nothing on the ground. If BJP is so sure that this is happening, why don't they go there and help people (Educate them and finance them).

 

[DaRk WaVe]

MOTHER KILLS HER CHILD.; Then Shot Herself, but Lives to Lose Her Reason
MOTHER KILLS HER CHILD.; Then Shot Herself, but Lives to Lose Her Reas... - Article Preview - The New York Times


Mother kills 2 kids, 2 escape
At their tender age of seven and six, Mahesh and Sasikala did not really know what happened to their mother. All they understood was that their mother was about to kill them by drowning in a deep well, just like how she had killed her two younger daughters minutes earlier.
The children still do not know what is happening around them. The bodies of their younger siblings are awaiting post-mortem, while their mother, Hamsavani, is behind bars at the same police station where they have taken refuge.
Driven by poverty-induced despair and depression due to her husband’s death, Hamsavani killed her daughters Gomathy (4) and Leelavathy (3), throwing them into a 70-feet deep well, at Sulur in Coimbatore district on Wednesday morning.
Her husband Venkatesan of Nallapalayam died a couple of years ago after a heart attack. According to police officials, Hamsavani's only earnings remained through menial work she did for which she got a paltry daily wage. “Hamsavani (35) was worried about the future of her children, especially the three girls. Her father allegedly promised to pay some money after selling their land though he did not keep the promise. She said this had left her family in extreme poverty,” said a district police personnel.
After finding no help from her family, she went to her late husband’s house on Tuesday, asking her father-in-law for money. But she had to return empty handed on Wednesday morning.
When she reached Sothakadu near Sulur at around 10 am, Hamsavani threw Leelavathy and Gomathy into a well on the road side. Shocked by this, Mahesh and Sasikala ran away from their mother and alerted a passer-by, a village level official, about the incident
Mother kills 2 kids, 2 escape

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Poverty forces couple to sell child for Rs.12,000

Poverty forces couple to sell child for Rs.12,000 news

Patna, May 13 (IANS) Pushed to desperation by acute poverty, a Dalit couple in Bihar was forced to sell their toddler son for Rs.12,000 to raise money for another baby battling an unknown disease.

Ram Briksha Sada and his wife Punia Devi, residents of Khesrah village in Samastipur district, about 80 km from here, sold their two-and-a-half year old son Dipnesh Kumar to Baleshwar Sharma for Rs 12,000. Their one-year-old son had been sick for the last couple of months and they did not have enough money to even diagnose his illness. Officials said Baleshwar Sharma, who works in Kolkata, had no children. A member of the village council tried to stop the deal but could not. Block development officer A.K. Arya said he had asked officials to probe into the matter and submit a report.​

Poverty forces 15 families to embrace Christianity​

Poverty forces 15 families to embrace Christianity - Christian Aggression

Varanasi, October 8:Around 85 members of 15 poor and dalit families allegedly embraced Christianity in Chaubeypur area under Chairaigaon development block here in Varanasi. The main reason behind this religious conservation is said to be poverty and social indifference.

Sources said that around 85 members of Dalit and poor families of Parnapur, Paranapur and Raipura villages of Chaubeypur area accepted Christianity recently.

It was alleged that Christian Missionaries had been wooing poor and down-trodden people to accept Christianity to lead a better life.

Sources further said that some residents of Harijan basti in Parnapur village accepted Christianity in the presence of a missionary, a few days ago. Sources added that this was not the first time that people had accepted Christianity in the area. Earlier, 20 villagers of Bankat and 40 villagers of Muridpur had also accepted Christianity a couple of years ago.

Those who accepted Christianity recently included Mewalal, Malti Devi, Radha Kumari, Sadhana Kumari, Jagdish Kumar, Shashikala, Bandhu Shyamji, Sukku, Rani, Chatthu Ram, Barsati, Ramji of Harijan basti in Parnapur village and Shyam Bihari, Guddu Yadav and Kanhaiya Yadav of Paranapur village.

These people claimed that their families were now better off after converting their religion.

However, sub-divisional magistrate Mahesh Chandra Sharma expressed his ignorance over mass conversion.

When contacted, Mahesh Chandra Sharma said, �I have no information regarding religious conversion in any village of Chaubeypur area�​

Poverty Forces Bangladeshi Woman to Turn to Organ Trade​

World Prout Assembly: Poverty Forces Bangladeshi Woman to Turn to Organ Trade

Shefali Begum, a 26-year-old Bangladeshi mother, became the focus of media attention last month after she took out a classified ad in a Bengali-language Sunday newspaper, Ittefaq, offering to sell one of her eyes.​

 

[DaRk WaVe]

This is the most horrible situation when humans are being sold.

I hate the role of Political Parties, they only put allegations and do nothing on the ground. If BJP is so sure that this is happening, why don't they go there and help people (Educate them and finance them).

This happened in one of the states where there is a feamle CM & one of the Indian members told that she is involved in corruption of about 500 corore Rupees, u cant expect anything from these bloody politicians any where...

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Poverty forces couple to give away new born - Monsters and Critics

Poverty forces couple to give away new born​

Jajpur (Orissa), July 24 (IANS) A couple in Orissa gave away a newborn baby -their fifth child - to one of their relatives as they cannot take care of him due to acute poverty.

Sheikh Karimuddin, 37, and his wife Munifa Bibi, 28, of village Maheswarpur in the coastal district of Jajpur, about 100 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, live in a thatched roof house with mud walls. Both of them are daily wage labourers.

While Munifa rolls bidi- a thin hand rolled cigarette for a local company and earns roughly Rs.400 per month, Karimuddin works as a helper in a private truck and earns less than 1,000 rupees per month.

The couple already has two daughters and two sons. On June 16, Munifa gave birth to a baby. 'We have handed over the boy permanently to Alli Khan and his wife Sohan Bibi of neighbouring Rekabi Bazar village,' Munifa told IANS.

'We had no other option because we are poor. We are not capable of maintaining the four children that we already have. Alli Khan, who is our relative, told us that he has three daughters and no son. He offered to adopt my child and take care of him. That is why we gave our child to the couple,' she said.

The matter came to light after local Congress leader Bijay Kumar Das Monday alleged that the couple sold their son. However, the baby's parents denied they sold the baby. ​

Can you imagine the pain that mother and the father would have gone through

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Poverty forces parents to 'sell' children

KARACHI - Poverty has a cruel face which feels even more cruel as economic impediments are a common scene in a developing country. It came to light the other day when a tale of sorrow and neglect was told by a eight-year-old ‘D’, son of ‘N,’ who recovered the other day.
According to the boy, he was sold by his parents for Rs30,000 to one Taous Khan. Similarly, he feared his other siblings were being maltreated by his parents and most of them had been sold due to poverty.
When the parents were caught by the Madadgar Helpline, the mother ‘Z’ confessed that due to alarming rise in poverty last year she sold her four young minor children which include 10-year-old ‘K’, 5-year-old ‘S’ and 3-year-old ‘H’ along with the ‘D’; to different people. However, she is in search of another customer for her another young daughter ‘S’.
In the jurisdiction of Police Station Zaman Town, where the incident occurred, Madadgar team appealed to Inspector Mumtaz to look into the matter and the team even contacted DIG East Zafar Abbas Bukhari for the recovery of the minors, in this particular case.
Advocate Zia Awan condemned this indelible act. He demanded recovery of the minor children but appreciated the role of UC Nizam towards safeguarding the minor ‘D’s right. He even demanded for the legislation in the laws of internal human trafficking and its implementation by the government as well.

Poverty forces parents to 'sell' children | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Bit off topic but still relevant, dont think that i m targeting any nation, poverty is a problem & curse for every nation..
Parents Who Sell Their Children...

No, there is no symbolism or metaphor behind the above headline. This article is about those parents who sell their children and make money out of it. This article is inspired by a true incident and is one of the stories of many abandoned childhoods in India. Discover the new aspects of relationships in the present India.

It was an overnight journey and the bus came to a halt at Dharmapuri, on the way to Bangalore. A couple got into the bus with three kids and a middle-aged man. The youngest among the kids is a baby girl of approximately two years old. Her face was as innocent as the cloudless sky in the deep sleep. The bus reached
Some of the sold out children are ill treated by the supposed to be new family.


Krishnapuri and suddenly the woman burst into tears. The middle-aged man took the baby girl from her hand and stuffed some notes into the husband's hand. The family got down from the bus leaving behind their youngest darling with the middle-aged man.

It was an overnight journey and the bus came to a halt at Dharmapuri, on the way to Bangalore. A couple got into the bus with three kids and a middle-aged man. The youngest among the kids is a baby girl of approximately two years old. Her face was as innocent as the cloudless sky in the deep sleep. The bus reached Krishnapuri and suddenly the woman burst into tears. The middle-aged man took the baby girl from her hand and stuffed some notes into the husband's hand. The family got down from the bus leaving behind their youngest darling with the middle-aged man.

Now, you can tell that it is all my imagination that I witnessed the sale of a child. Any way it as not my hallucination! The middle-aged man was moved by all the incidents and started explaining his situation himself or to the sleeping co-passenger. The couple are unemployed peasants from the rural area and unable to provide the food to their children on some days. A new hope came to them when a religious institution came and offered shelter for their youngest one in the orphanage. Not only that the parents and siblings of the child can avail a minor financial support from the institution, if they disown their blood and allow her to live a life in the orphanage or in the house of adopted parents.

The selling of children by their own parents is becoming more common in rural parts of India. Even when most parents found it difficult to let go of their children's hand, they had already convinced that selling their children to a family with better living conditions would provide them at least with food. Once the extreme poverty and unemployment push parents to the edge, they are forced to make decisions once believed unthinkable.

Most of the parents who sell their children are doomed to live a life of despair and anguish. Even though they are soothed with the financial support and a hope for the better future, they are tormented by some alarming incidents. Some of the sold out children are ill treated by the supposed to be new family. On the other hand some others run away from their new families with the call of blood.

There are some of the religious institutions and NGOs that work as mediators in this shocking sale. They often claim that they are providing service to the society. However as a common human being I've to ask this question. If they are capable to become mediators, why can't they try to provide the help without separating the baby from their parents? Parents are also responsible for the lives that they brought in. Unless this alarming business is plucked from the beginning, India will witness estranged family bondings and its effects very soon!
Sell Children | Despair | Anguish | Financial Support

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Indonesian Parents Forced To Give Up Kids

Parents' Poverty, Not Deaths, Lead To Flooded Orphanages

(AP) Yulianto's parents are still alive, but the 13-year-old has spent half his life in an orphanage. Looking down at the ground, he quietly explains why: His mom and dad are too poor to feed him and put him through school.

Yulianto is far from alone. A major survey of Indonesia's child care institutions released this month found orphanages flooded with children separated from their parents not by death, but because of poverty.

"I just want to be with my parents, even if it means I cannot get an education," said Yulianto, who like many Indonesians uses a single name.

The study by the U.S.-based charity Save the Children and the Indonesian government was the first detailed look at children's homes in the country. It surveyed six provinces and analyzed the legal and political issues facing the institutions.

According to the report, up to 500,000 of Indonesia's 85 million children live in institutions, one of the highest rates in the world. Of those, 90 percent still have one or more parent alive.

In the 36 homes surveyed, the children spent much of the time when they were not at school cooking, cleaning and looking after younger children because the institutions were under staffed.

Staff quoted in the report were not worried about this, saying the children were receiving free food and education and would almost certainly be working in the fields or helping their parents if they had remained at home.

"The staff are about managing children, not providing care," said Florence Martin, a child protection adviser with Save the Children in Jakarta. "Institutions think their purpose is providing education, so children's needs at the psychological level are not on the agenda."

The survey found government policy was in part fueling the surge in parents giving up their kids.

As part of efforts to combat poverty, the government has for five years funded orphanages based on the number of children they register. The aid has led religious and social organizations to establish new institutions and existing homes to actively "recruit" children, the survey found.

As evidence, the survey pointed to a dramatic rise in the number of orphanages in Indonesia - as many as 8,000, up from 1,600 in 1998.

"If you wanted to be mean, you could say running an institution is a pretty good business," said Martin. "When you've got 10 children coming out, you need to find 10 children to come in."

The report says most children have little contact with their families - perhaps a brief visit home once a year - because they are too poor to travel. Some institutions discourage relationships between children and their families because "it is believed the moral guidance children get in institutions would be weakened by contact with parents," Martin said.

Yulianto lives in the Parapattan Orphanage in central Jakarta with 65 other kids. The home encourages families to visit, but many parents say they cannot often do so because they lack money and work long hours.

The buildings are clean, but signs of wear and tear are everywhere. Paint peels from the walls and grass grows up between cracked concrete flooring. In the yard, boys use sandals to bat plastic balls over a shredded net.

The report makes it clear that the parents give up their children because of poverty.

World Bank figures show about half of Indonesia's 235 million people live on less than US$2 a day. Martin said the soaring prices of staple foods and a recent 30 percent increase in fuel costs would surely lead to more parents giving up their kids.

"I know my children are angry with me, but I try to convince them that is the best choice for us," said Tinor Niang, a 38-year-old noodle vendor who brought her two sons to Parapattan nine years ago.

"As a mother I want to take care of my children but I cannot be selfish. I want the best future for them, so I have no choice but to leave them."

Almost all of Indonesia's children's homes are privately run, many by Islamic organizations in this majority Muslim country. Nearly half operate on less than US$10,000 a year, the report found.

Makmur Sunusi, director general for social services and rehabilitation at the Welfare Ministry, said the government was aware of the problem and was looking at ways to help poor families without breaking them up.

Farm laborer Noldi Jacob held back tears explaining why he left his children at Parapattan.

"The economic situation is getting more difficult and I cannot depend on my brothers and sisters to pay for my children," he said. "As a father it pains me to admit that I cannot finance my children, but I believe this orphanage can guide, love and teach them."

Indonesian Parents Forced To Give Up Kids - CBS News

 

[DaRk WaVe]

This one is for all those stupids who like to generalize all women as whores, they dont even think what made them whores

Thai Families Selling their Children to the Sex Trade

Mae Sai, Thailand -- When Burmese migrant Ngun Chai sold his 13-year-old daughter into prostitution for $114, his wife, La, had one regret -- they didn't get a good price for her.

"I should have asked for 10,000 baht ($228)," La Chai said. "He robbed us."

She was angry that the agent who bought her eldest child, Saikun, in 1999 took her to Bangkok, some 460 miles away, rather than a nearby city as promised. It did not concern La Chai that Saikun would be forced to have sex with as many as eight men a day.

Ngun Chai earns about $100 a year selling bamboo bowls in the local market and lives in a thatched hut in Pa Tek village on the outskirts of Mae Sai, a bustling town of 80,000 inhabitants on Thailand's northern most border with Burma. Tensions run high between the two nations' armies and occasionally lead to the exchange of gunfire across the muddy waters of the Mae Sai River separating the two nations.

But the occasional violence has done nothing to hinder the town's two main trades -- drugs and daughters.

Though the smuggling of vast quantities of heroin and amphetamines from Burma and China through Thailand has given the region its infamous tag -- the Golden Triangle -- it's the explosion in the recruitment of girls into the lucrative Thai sex industry that has put this border town on the map.

Last December, Mae Sai was high on the agenda at the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Yokohama, Japan, where national governments and child protection agencies met to exchange information and review policies.

There are no reliable statistics on the number of children working in the sex industry worldwide, but the lowest figure cited is 1 million. The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that one-third of sex workers in Southeast Asia are 12 to 17 years of age.

Every year, hundreds of young girls from Mae Sai are spirited away to brothels in Bangkok, where they feed the insatiable appetite of the $20 billion commercial sex industry, according to the International Labor Organization.

"We tend to think of trafficking as involving sophisticated crime organizations, but much of it is really a cottage industry involving small- time profiteers," said Phil Marshall, manager of a U.N. agency in Bangkok that monitors the trafficking of women and children.

The Development and Education Program for Daughters and Communities (DEPDC),

a nongovernmental organization in Mae Sai that works with local girls who are at risk of being sold, estimates that of Pa Tek's 800 families, 7 in every 10 have sold at least one daughter into the trade.

With prices varying from $114 to $913 -- the latter figure equal to almost six years' wages for most families -- parental bonds in impoverished households are easily broken. In fact, child prostitution is so established that many brothel agents live in the village, and are often friends or relatives of the family from whom they buy the children.

"Agents will come to the village with orders to fill so people in Bangkok - Thai men and foreigners, mostly Europeans - can order girls like they order pizza," said DEPDC Director Sompop Jantraka. "If they want a girl with thin hips and big breasts, the agents will come up here and find her. They always deliver."

The agents also approach the thousands of girls from Burma, Laos and southern provinces of China who cross the border annually. Many wind up working as prostitutes in Singapore, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

But few villages in the region have contributed as many daughters as Pa Tek.

Populated by Burmese immigrants who have crossed the border illegally to escape poverty and persecution by their nation's military leaders, most are allowed by the Thai government to live and work in the border area with no legal status. Many work as agricultural laborers and earn less than $160 a year.

The depths of poverty make the area easy pickings for brothel agents, or "aunties."

Virginity is highly prized. Fueling the demand for young girls is ignorance about HIV-AIDS transmission and myths about the curative powers of virginity.

Some brothel customers - especially those from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Middle East - believe a child is unable to transmit disease and therefore less risky for sex. In reality, children are physically more prone to bleeding,

infection and disease, said Marshall of the United Nations.

Somporn Khempetch, coordinator of the Child Protection and Rights Center in Mae Sai, said 50 girls in Pa Tek had died last year from AIDS.

Despite the risks, there is no shortage of parents willing to sell their children.

A recent ILO report challenges existing thinking on child prostitution in Asia. The policy is to target sophisticated people-smuggling networks, but the report says the majority of girls who leave their villages to work in the sex trade do so through informal networks, and with the approval and willing participation of their parents.

"We have found that many girls want to leave home and work elsewhere, preferably in cities," said Hans van de Glind, one of the report's authors. "It's not so much a poverty issue because we found that girls from one village would migrate while girls from another, equally poor, wouldn't."

Sompop, of DEPDC, says education is the way to deter girls from going into prostitution. Before the 1997 Thai constitution guaranteed citizens 12 years of free education, the majority of girls leaving Mae Sai for the sex trade were Thai, he says. Now, Thais account for less that 2 percent, according to Sompop.

With fewer Thai girls going into the trade, agents have cast their nets wider to snag the many girls from neighboring countries who cross the bridge over the Mae Sai River into Thailand.

"This is an open border," said Wichai Promsilpa, Mae Sai's police chief. "Thousands of people cross here every day. We cannot tell the difference between a girl coming here to buy eggs and a girl coming to work as a prostitute."

Sompop, however, says prostitution will continue as long as foreigners come looking for cheap sex.

"The border was always easy to get across," he said. "What has changed is the demand for these girls. As long as there are foreign men coming to this country and spending large amounts of money for girls, this trade will flourish."

Meanwhile, DEPDC workers are keeping a close watch on the Chais' beautiful 12-year-old daughter, Nangdee. They worry that brothel agents will dangle the maximum amount for her, but Saikun, the daughter Ngun Chai sold, said, "I never want my sister to work in a brothel."

Thai Families Selling their Children to the Sex Trade - Slavery & Prostitution - The Sex eZine

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Here is another one for those stupids

Iraqi women: Prostituting ourselves to feed our children

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.
art.iraqwoman.cnn.jpg

Suha, 37, is a mother of three. She says her husband thinks she is cleaning houses when she leaves home.

"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."

A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.

"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.

Anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks.

"No matter what else I may be, no matter how off the path I may be, I am a mother!" Video Watch a woman describe turning to prostitution to "save my child" »

Her clasped hands clench and unclench nervously. Suha's husband thinks that she is cleaning houses when she goes away.

So does Karima's family.

"At the start I was cleaning homes, but I wasn't making much. No matter how hard I worked it just wasn't enough," she says.

Karima, clad in all black, adds, "My husband died of lung cancer nine months ago and left me with nothing."

She has five children, ages 8 to 17. Her eldest son could work, but she's too afraid for his life to let him go into the streets, preferring to sacrifice herself than risk her child.

She was solicited the first time when she was cleaning an office.

"They took advantage of me," she says softly. "At first I rejected it, but then I realized I have to do it."

Both Suha and Karima have clients that call them a couple times a week. Other women resort to trips to the market to find potential clients. Or they flag down vehicles.

Prostitution is a choice more and more Iraqi women are making just to survive.

"It's increasing," Suha says. "I found this 'thing' through my friend, and I have another friend in the same predicament as mine. Because of the circumstance, she is forced to do such things."

Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.

"At this point there is a population of women who have to sell their bodies in order to keep their children alive," says Yanar Mohammed, head and founder of the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq. "It's a taboo that no one is speaking about."

She adds, "There is a huge population of women who were the victims of war who had to sell their bodies, their souls and they lost it all. It crushes us to see them, but we have to work on it and that's why we started our team of women activists."

Her team pounds the streets of Baghdad looking for these victims often too humiliated to come forward.

"Most of the women that we find at hospitals [who] have tried to commit suicide" have been involved in prostitution, said Basma Rahim, a member of Mohammed's team.

The team's aim is to compile information on specific cases and present it to Iraq's political parties -- to have them, as Mohammed puts it, "come tell us what [they] are ... going to do about this."

Rahim tells the heartbreaking story of one woman they found who lives in a room with three of her children: "She has sex while her three children are in the room, but she makes them stand in separate corners."

According to Rahim and Mohammed, most of the women they encounter say they are driven to prostitution by a desperate desire for survival in the dangerously violent and unforgiving circumstances in Iraq.

"They took this path but they are not pleased," Rahim says.

Karima says when she sees her children with food on the table, she is able to convince herself that it's worth it. "Everything is for the children. They are the beauty in life and, without them, we cannot live."

But she says, "I would never allow my daughter to do this. I would rather marry her off at 13 than have her go through this."

Karima's last happy memory is of her late husband, when they were a family and able to shoulder the hardships of life in today's Iraq together.

Suha says as a young girl she dreamed of being a doctor, with her mom boasting about her potential in that career. Life couldn't have taken her further from that dream.
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"It's not like we were born into this, nor was it ever in my blood," she says.

What she does for her family to survive now eats away at her. "I lay on my pillow and my brain is spinning, and it all comes back to me as if I am watching a movie."
Iraqi women: Prostituting ourselves to feed our children - CNN.com

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Poverty-hit woman kills two sons, herself

A poverty-stricken woman in an Uttar Pradesh village killed her two sons before committing suicide, police said Monday.
“The incident took place today (Monday) in Karhi village in Hamirpur district, where Bati Vishwakarma (30) hacked her two sons, aged four and one, to death and later set herself afire,” district police chief Suryanath told IANS over telephone.

According to locals, Vishwakarma’s husband had left her about seven months ago following some marital problems. Since then, Vishwakarma was living with her two sons and used to work as a labourer in the village.

Police have detained Viswakarma’s husband for questioning.

Poverty-hit woman kills two sons, herself