Los Angeles: Afghan parents are forced to sell their children to deal with poverty. Desperate to feed her family, Saleha, a mother of 6 in western Afghanistan, is one of them. She has no option but to hand over her 3-year-old daughter, Najiba, to the man she owes $550.
Reading this heart wrenching story in Wall Street Journal recently, social entrepreneur and hotelier Sunil “Sunny” Tolani reached out to the paper offering to pay off the $550 so Saleha could get her child back. “I was outraged that a 3-year-old Afghan girl was being traded to a man because her mom couldn’t afford to pay a debt.”
“If we can give this family their daughter back, their Laxmi back this Diwali season, we will be blessed,” said Tolani. “Everything is hard, but nothing is impossible,” the Los Angeles based Tolani says, urging this family and young Afghan women not to lose hope.
