Indian Farmers, Hammered By Drought, Sell Wives To Pay Their Debts - AFP

[hatrack]

Drought-hit farmers in northern India are resorting to selling their wives to repay debts to local loan sharks, activists say, as one of the weakest monsoons in years takes its toll. Poverty, poor administration and a lack of education means farmers in the rugged Bundelkhand region are taking extreme steps to pull through a poor rainy season, they say.

"This has been happening for quite some time now, but people were hesitant to come out with all this," said Manoj Kumar, a social activist working with farmers in the area.

Excluded from the formal banking sector, the poverty-stricken farmers often turn to usurious private money lenders when banks refuse them loans or even accounts. After five years of poor crop yields and steadily decreasing rainfall, the crushing weight of the high interest payments has led to a well-documented spate of suicides and increasing cases of human-trafficking.

EDIT

Local reports have suggested wives can be pawned or sold for anything between one rupee to 12,000 rupees (240 dollars). Some women are sold under the guise of a legal marriage, complete with a formal contract, but activists believe others end up being exploited by prostitution rings. In the last four to five years around 50 percent of the region's population has left Bundelkhand villages to find work in cities, and at least 500 farmers have committed suicide, according to various Indian media reports.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Drought-hit_Indian_farmers_sell_wives_to_pay_debts_999.html

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. horrible!

[aquart]

2. If you sell your wife, suicide is an appropriate option.

But the sellers aren't the suicidees.

[madokie]

3. Thats terrible

Everyone involved excluding the wives should be hung by the neck from the nearest object until dead. Those people flat ass don't deserve to live if you ask me.

[pscot]

4. Drought is common in the best of times

The area is a rather arid plain that used to be covered with teak and ebony forests until the British cut down all the trees. The rivers are deeply eroded and rain quickly runs off. Farming has always been a hardscrabble proposition, and much of the population work as itinerant farm laborers. When times are good,they're bad. When they're bad, farmers kill themselves, or sell their wives and children. Welcome to the third world, where it sucks to be poor. See Wikipedia for details.