Hunger

Hunger Prompting Desperate Acts

Alison Raphael
OneWorld US

Mon., May. 19, 2008

According to the UN, about 6.5 million Afghans don't have enough food for their daily needs. © Abdullah Shaheen/IRIN

WASHINGTON, May 19 (OneWorld) - An Afghan father, unable to feed his family, sold his 11-year old daughter for $2,000 to buy food for the rest of his family, IRIN News reported Sunday.

Illiterate and unable to find work, the man could no longer support his family by scavenging, he told a reporter for the UN-based news agency, because high food prices mean less food is being thrown away and more Afghans are scavenging.

Sayed Ali (pseudonym) said he had to sell his daughter to save the rest of his family from starvation. © Parwin Arzo/IRIN

"I know people will say I am a cruel and merciless father who sold his own child, but those who say so don't know my hardship and have never felt the hunger that my family suffers," said the Afghan man, identified only by a pseudonym.

Poor people across the planet tend to spend half their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Rising food prices are rapidly pushing the world's 100 million poorest citizens to the limit of their humanity.

-cont.