Mother arrested for selling daughter
26 January Daily Mail
A mother has been arrested in India after allegedly selling her
11-year-old daughter to pay off a fine.The woman is thought to have sold
her daughter for 650,000 rupees or £7,611 to settle the fine imposed on
her by the council in her home village in the northwestern state of
Rajasthan.Police also arrested a couple accused of buying the young
girl.
The mother told police she sold her child to pay a fine of 450,000
rupees or £5,317 imposed by the council as a penalty for violating a
local tradition.The sale, which took place around a month ago, came to
light when the woman's daughter tried to run away from the couple that
allegedly bought her from her mother, police in Rajasthan told BBC
News.The man and woman chased the girl, who managed to get to a
restaurant where customers alerted the police.The young girl told
officers she had been beaten by the couple, and claimed they had planned
to sell her on to somebody in Mumbai.Rakesh Verma, head of the
anti-trafficking unit in Tonk district, Rajasthan, said: 'We arrested
the mother of the girl and the two buyers, Tarachand Jat and Santra
Devi.
'The girl has been handed over to a shelter and she is safe now,' he
added.Police said the girl's mother was fined by her village council for
backing out of a marriage agreement involving her daughter.
She had allegedly married off her daughter to a man under a local
custom that sees the groom pay the mother for the bride. It is thought
the woman later broke the agreement and took her daughter home.Thousands
of children in India fall into the hands of slave traders every year
many sold by their desperate, poverty-stricken parents.
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