KARACHI, June 12: Though officialdom often boasts of robust economic growth at the national level, not much of this prosperity seems to be trickling down to ‘the common man.’ An example of people’s desperation to stave off extreme poverty is that of a pregnant woman willing to sell her unborn child. Unable to cope with the daily struggle to feed her family, she is willing to sell her expected child for Rs300,000.

A resident of Karachi’s former district Central the woman, in her late 40s, who wished to remain anonymous, told Dawn that her family’s economic woes could be addressed from the amount she is hoping to get in return for the child.

“I have to marry off my daughter, who is of marriageable age, whereas I have to pay back the debts which I and my husband have incurred just to meet our daily expenses,” she says.

The couple has six children from their marriage: the eldest is 18 years old while the youngest is five.

The woman’s husband, Rafiq, is a daily wage earner who makes about Rs150 a day by supplying home-cooked meals to offices in the old city area.

According to his wife, Rafiq supports the idea but is not comfortable with talking to a newsman.

The woman is so serious about selling the expected child that her sister approached the office of an Urdu-language newspaper asking if they could publish an advertisement announcing the sale of the child. However, someone at the newspaper referred them to the offices of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, a social welfare organisation.

“For the time being I have persuaded the mother not to sell the child. But seeing the extent of their desperation she would probably end up selling the child one way or the other,” Sarim Burney, Vice-Chairman of the trust, told Dawn.

Asked if she thinks anyone else would be able to bring up the child better, she says that “If a good family takes the child, I am quite sure that they could take care of my child far better than I could.”

However, when asked if she would keep the child if her economic situation was addressed, the woman nodded in acceptance.