Dhaka woman offers eye for sale.

[bdmoderator]

A Bangladeshi woman has placed an advert in a newspaper offering to sell one of her eyes.

Shefali Begum, who lives in the capital, Dhaka, told the BBC it was her only way to escape from poverty.

She said she had no money for rent or to feed her daughter. Doctors fear her advert might start a trend among the poor. No-one has taken up her offer.

The sale of any organ, whether the donor is dead or alive, is illegal in Bangladeshi law, but rarely enforced.

Adverts offering kidneys for sale appear regularly in Bangladeshi newspapers.

Husband left

Shefali Begum, 26, lives with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a tiny bamboo and corrugated-tin room in the east of the capital. They have no furniture.

She says her husband of four years left her last month, and she is penniless.

"I have no education, so it's not possible for me, a single mother, to get a decent job," she said.

"All I want is some money so that I can buy a piece of land for my daughter. I would not repent if that causes me blindness."

Ophthalmologists in Bangladesh say it is the first time they have heard of someone trying to sell their eye.

Cornea transplants are permitted in the country only after the donor has died. The government declined to comment on the case.


Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4466883.stm

Edited on, April 20, 2005, 8:35 PM GMT, by bdmoderator.

Edited on, April 20, 2005, 8:36 PM GMT, by bdmoderator.

[bdmoderator]

It's very pathetic. Selling eye for money. Isn't it hurt you??? Can you beleive it???

[Spitfire_x86]

She's sick!!!! Extreme poverty has badly messed up her head .

Most poor people with saner mental condition wouldn't want to give their eye for money

Edited on, April 21, 2005, 2:46 PM GMT, by Spitfire_x86.

[AbedinC]

Originally posted by Spitfire_x86
She's SICK!!!! Extreme poverty has badly messed up his head .
Most poor people with saner mental condition wouldn't want to give their eye for money

dude... ever stopped to ask yourself what kind of poverty can make a person sell one's eye? Or one's baby for that matter, as was the case day before?

[Spitfire_x86]

Yeah, I asked that myself before. The poverty is so bad that it's unbearable for her. Guess, somebody decided to buy her eyes and she becomes blind for the rest of her life. Now even if she can live, she will be living the rest of her life severely depressed for the self-chosen blindness.

It's like comitting suicide. No person in right mind wants to die.

[Fazal]

Originally posted by Spitfire_x86
It's like comitting suicide. No person in right mind wants to die.

.... unless the person is mentally ill or the person see no hope and reason to live for. In this case its the later(I guess).

In desperate time, people make desperate decision that might look odd (as face value) if we are not wearing his/her shoes.

[Spitfire_x86]

I read about even sadder events than this. Last year, a 10-12 years old girl in Kurigram died from poisoning. She didn't get anything to eat for 1 whole day and in desperation she picked up some raw raddish from a field and ate them. Some hour later the poisoning started and she died.

That girl was despeate, not sick. She wanted to survive, not die or deformed as deformed.

(btw, I'm not unsympathetic about this event, I just wanted to say what I thought about her current mental condition)

[babubangla]

How much was she asking for one of her eyes?
It's very rude question.
I was just trying to have an idea about the kind of way out she was looking for to escape from poverty. If it turns out that she is willing to sell her eyes for just couple hundred or couple thousands taka...this will mean may be she is struggling to meet her basic needs like food, shelter. If you are in lower-middle class and suffering from extreme poverty, begging is not an option for you. In such situation, people like her may want to fnd an way out selling organs.