DHAKA, April 19: An impoverished Bangladeshi woman has placed an advertisement in a Bengali-language newspaper seeking to sell one of her eyes. The advertisement inviting offers was placed in the classified columns of the daily Ittefaq newspaper on Sunday by a woman named Shefali Begum from Dhaka.

“Shefali Begum is very poor. All she wants is a good sum of money so that she can buy her only daughter a piece of land in the countryside and thereafter live a happy life,” Shefali’s landlady, Rini Sattar.

Doctors in Bangladesh oppose the sale, saying they fear it might start a trend among the poor.

Cornea transplants are only permitted in Bangladesh after the death of the donor.

“We strongly condemn it,” said Mustafizur Rahman, a leading eye practitioner and adviser to the Bangladesh Opthalmological Society.

“This would be a first ever instance of someone in Bangladesh selling an eye. We will ask the government to make it a criminal offenc7e so that it doesn’t become a trend like the sale of kidneys,” he added.

Advertisements offering kidneys for sale appear regularly in Bangladeshi newspapers.—AFP