Young mother wants to sell baby for Sh120,000

The biting famine and cash crunch has pushed low income families beyond desperation. Some parents have opted to sell the last of their possessions rather than watch as their children die of hunger and starvation.

But there are those that have disposed of everything and no longer have anything left for sale.

“I have sold myself. I am now two months pregnant and no boyfriend wants me. I am also jobless,” says 20-year-old Hilda Shilzi. Hilda is now selling her only remaining property: her daughter.

“It is better to sell her to someone who is willing to raise her than to see her living the way we are because we have no future,” she says.

She explains that she has no means to feed her daughter and things seem to be getting worse. “On most occasions, I buy her porridge which has become her main dish.”

Baby Sharon Achieng, who is aged two years and three months, is asleep unaware of the stark choice that her mother has made.

“I would appreciate if I can get buyer who can part with Sh120,000 and I will give him or her the baby.”

But she can offer a small discount of 10 or 20 per cent only but “not anything else less than that because I want money that can enable me put up a business to assist myself and the other unborn baby.”

Hilda says being an orphan, she has no one to help her. She says her mother who hailed from Kakamega passed on in 2003 while her younger sister died earlier.

Although, her mother had earlier been married to a man she only describes as a man from the Digo community in Coast Province, she does not know anything about him as the parents parted ways while she was very young.

She says her other relatives are unwilling to help. “I have approached them but they have told me that they can only take in my daughter when she is big enough but not now. It is like I will be burdening them,” she says, amidst tears.

“I have gone through a lot of problems with this baby since conception. I was working as a house-help in Kariobangi South when I got pregnant. My boyfriend who was a secondary school student staying with his mother, disowned the pregnancy and I nursed it alone.”

Hilda says her employer paid her and asked her to leave when she realised that she was pregnant.

“That was in 2006. I went to live with my cousin in Mathare North who housed till I gave birth. But a year later, she died.

“I did some odd jobs like washing clothes and cleaning houses for people at a fee. But the money was little there was no way I could afford to pay house rent. I teamed up with my friends and I started staying with them.”

Mid last year, Hilda says she met a “very sympathetic” man who housed her.

“We lived together happily for a couple of months but when he realised that I was pregnant a month ago, he kicked us out and moved to another place which I can’t tell.” The young mother was sheltered by one of her former friends.

“I am putting up with one of them and life for us is getting harder day-by-day as we can no longer afford a meal a day. I have tried looking for a job a casual but has been difficult getting one because prospective employers do not want someone with a child like me.”