When Mother Sells Children
By Ghazala Khan • Apr 20th, 2008 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look • (3,766 views) • 27 CommentsThe country’s economic landscape is in shambles and the so-called trickle-down effect of Shaukat Aziz’s economic reforms are nowhere to be seen. But that doesn’t answer the call of stomach and that is not suffice to appease the hellish appetite of uncontrollably weeping children.
In the first place there is shortage of everything. From wheat to rice and from milk to vegetales everything is scarce and whatever is available in the market is of low quality and of extremely high and unaffordable price. The common people of Pakistan which comprises of 99% of the population are compelled to cut down the meals and now most of the households are living on just one meal a day and that one meal is not lavish by any means.
These are the times when people like Bushra of Lahore commit suicide along with her children and these are the times when Zareena of Multan puts her children for sale. Bushra’s husband earned hardly Rs. 3000 monthly and was unable to feed his family and that is the same story of Zareena’s husband who just earns the same amount every month. Both ladies went to extreme because their husbands lost their work due to load-shedding and their children were unable to understand the unavailability of food.
Zareena took her two children: daughter Arooj Fatima (8) and son Rehan (10) to a nearby Qaddaffi Chowk, and sat them on the footpath and hung “For Sale” in their necks and started weeping. Passerby people got shocked, they probed into their pockets to help the lady a little, but then they recalled their own hungry children. Police came afterwards, took the family to police station and threatened the lady to not to do it again, as it gave bad name to the authorities.
The inflation rate is soaring and with the rising oil prices it will get worse and ultimately will burst at the seams by sending the people back to the stone age. To counter that and to render some semblance of breathing space to the hapless people of this land of pure, the government must do something drastic.
A nation wide austerity program should be initiated starting from the top, and food budgets of Army, Police and other security officials must be made simple and short while there must be a strangled restriction on meals provided in the government functions in the country.
Last 5 posts by Ghazala Khan
- Clueless Government and Government in Waiting - October 20th, 2008
- Pakistani Bailout Plan - October 18th, 2008
- We Won't Be Happy on Eid, If We Were a Nation - October 1st, 2008
- Ramadan = Price Hike + Hoarding - September 6th, 2008
- Ramadan and Price Hike - September 1st, 2008
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Ghazala Khan
My Mantra : Democracy, Democracy, Democracy
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April 23rd, 2008
please dont waste hundreds of minutes on blogging and opinion oriented thoughts .ghazala has very impressive and emotional implication of her view .suggestionand criticism will not benifit any one ,and neither society .”you got to be the change ,if you want a change”.you can not give excuses if you neighbour has slept without food.veery one has to share the responsibility from all platform. if you think it is the responsibility of the government,make it mandatory by circulating your grieviances. do not pay zakat to govt. take care of the poor rest of the year with that amount .do not just waste your life by saying that you are practising islam as and desired by the lord. if you have gone through the event ,share the responsibility by endorsing it as an essential element of islam.its not too late when such disaster will be the story of every corner of the country.
April 21st, 2008
James Sutherland, what you suggest is too emmotional a course for alleviation of poverty - a 100% tax would be rather be too counter-productive as it will take away all the incentives from anyone to generate any wealth which would hurt the poor most and spread poverty even more.
April 20th, 2008
Kamal on April 20th, 2008 :
That seems to me a drama by that women in Multan just to earn some easy bucks and gain media lime light. You fool Ghazala Khan has just given her that. She wasn’t possibly there to sell chidren and who would have bought them and why? This sort of melodrama is good for the news and posts like these. Cut the crap.
You know what - Kamal you are that “Hole”!
April 20th, 2008
James Sutherland on April 20th, 2008 :
While I am anything but a “reformist,” [I like to think of myself as a radical pogressive] I have long had what I think would be the most efficient reform measure for achieving a far more equitable distribution of wealth.
Impose a 100% tax on all income that exceeds 20 times the poverty rate. Doing so would create an absolute incentive for the wealthy to see to it that the income of the poor rises, for the ability of the wealthy to accumulate more would be directly tied to an increase in the income of those at the economic bottom.
April 20th, 2008
Saleem Khan said it best: society is responsible for reducing any imbalance found within it. Zakat is one such obligation – for Allah allows sometime some people to suffer to test others - how they react to them.
April 20th, 2008
Ahh!! the tricket down effect Shaukat Aziz was talking about ?
April 20th, 2008
Whom to blame for all this??? Shaoukat Aziz, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir, Musharraf and so on??? No, we have to blame this cruel system. which not gives space to any poor. We have to blame our self. We all comes online and writes couple of lines and thinks that we have done our job to crub poverty from society. Dear don’t wait for government. We fool selects them to eat our resources and run to USA. how you can even assume that they can feel pains of poor man or even middle man. we have to solve these issues as per our power.
I basically belongs to Village and have lands in central Punjab, Pakistan. I admire one good thing about our village system that no body tries to do suicide or else due to hunger. All neighbor takes care up to some extent of each other. There are few widows in village but thanks Allah their children are studying and they are having food at least. We people, who have lands normally gives them wheat and rice after crops gets final. gives them grass etc for their cattle (cattle are normally given by us at 50/50 profit) and they can enjoy milk fully also. So over all, they remains safe and secure in the hands of other neighbors. but in cities, no body bothers that who is living next to them. we are very materialistic now. we do friendships for our need only. how such society can survive for longer period.
You know what is our duty? Blaming Government and feeling that we have finished our duty. Noting like this dear. please save as much as u can. please compromise few daily mobile calls and sms and few outdoor lunches and give this small money to any poor family around you. it will be more than enough for them. Where we will take this money after death? Don’t expect that your children will even pray for you later on so do good deeds as you can. At least give Zakat. Its impulsion on you so at least fulfill it. its enough for poor people.