IN the absence of functioning mechanisms, certain sorts of criminal behaviour become inevitable. This is the lesson to be read into the arrest on Friday of a Peshawar doctor on the charge of selling newborn babies. After receiving a tip-off, a policewoman posing as a potential customer contacted the doctor, who was arrested upon producing an infant. Referring to statements given by the doctor, the police said that this was not the first time she had sold babies for sums upwards of Rs150,000.

This deeply repugnant story points to an underlying but ignored problem. Thousands of couples in the country are desirous of taking on the guardianship of unwanted or orphaned children (Pakistani law does not allow adoption but custodianship can be granted to persons other than the children's biological parents). The Edhi Foundation has a waiting list of over 10,000 applications. Equally, there are children whose parents, for one reason or another, wish to give them up. The babies sold by the Peshawar doctor, for example, were reportedly illegitimate. However, there is a glaring shortage of formal mechanisms through which prospective guardians can be matched with children. A handful of private or charitable concerns carry out this task. The sad rea-lity is that many children who are unfortunate enough to be abandoned are unlikely to find a new home; meanwhile, people desirous of adopting may be driven to desperate measures. Such a situation creates space for crimes such as kidnapping, human trafficking and sale as described above. Indeed, a police official quoted the Peshawar doctor as saying that she did not regret her actions and considered herself to be saving the babies. Until the country develops formalised and official mechanisms to link abandoned children with prospective guardians, it is likely that such travesties will continue to take place.