Parents for sale

Five handicapped brothers and sisters put up their aged parents for auction outside the DCO office.

KHANEWAL: On Tuesday afternoon five handicapped brothers and sisters put up their aged parents for auction outside the district coordination officer (DCO) office.

The children put their parents up for auction in a camp and invited biddings to sell them saying that their family was starving and that their parents had volunteered to be sold if the money could pay for their treatment.

Khanewal resident retired Railways official Muhammad Sarwar’s five children Tanveer, Badar, Safdar, Zaheer and Nadia have all been rendered disabled due to a genetic degenerative disorder.

Sarwar and his wife had sold off their entire property and furniture to pay for their children’s treatment and were still unable to afford the medical bills.

The siblings told reporters that they had nothing to eat and had been starving for two days when they took the decision to auction their parents.

“The government earlier promised to give us financial assistance but we didn’t receive anything.

We are desperate,” Safdar said. The children said that they were disabled and couldn’t work to earn for their family and that their father was retired so they had no source of income.

A large crowd gathered to witness the spectacle but the DCO has not issued any statement regarding the incident as yet.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2011.