From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24 (Original Message) Sent: 1/4/2007 10:21 AM
CHECHNYA: CHILDREN FOR SALE
Social taboos and economic desperation fuel child trafficking.
By Laila Baisultanova in Grozny
Ten years ago, I glimpsed the problem when I was riding in a taxi through the
village of Assinovskaya in Chechnya. I saw six children standing in a line
beside a wooden fence. When I wondered why they were standing there, the taxi
driver answered, "To be sold."
The driver said that mothers were unable to take care of the children, so they
sold them to well-off people. "One girl has already been sold," he said. "She
was nice and beautiful with fair hair. They bought her because she was very
small. These ones are bigger and no one wants to buy them."
There was no way of verifying what he had to say, but evidence suggests that
after a decade of conflict and turmoil in Chechnya, the number of childless
families has risen drastically and people are ...
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