Without a man at your side or a child at your feet you're nothing! + Link with 'The Waiting City' review

Although almost half of India's 1 billion population live in abject poverty, motherhood is still one of the primary means to a woman achieving social status, respect and recognition within her own family and male dominated Hindu society. The barren (banj) woman is not permitted to attend social functions and is ostracised, like the 33 million widows of India - sold when they were young to older men who died or deserted them, are compelled for the remainder of their lives to beg on the streets for their subsistence. These widows '...cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck' (CNN, 2007). They are considered less than human.

Many couples, compelled by tradition and religion to reproduce, cannot afford to look after their offspring, and, more often than not, these children are dumped. There are more than 25 million abandoned children in India and these children, like other debris deposited on the street (general refuse, plus animal and human faeces) are basically treated as waste ~ unwanted, valueless! If it wasn't for religious institutions and other charitable organisations these children would surely perish.
Over-population, unhygienic living conditions, lack of education, unemployment, ill treatment of women and the disabled and well as the caste system, all contribute to an absolutely dire situation for over 400 million people.
However, since there are many childless American, British and Australian couples willing to adopt from poorer countries, abandoned children have become potentially more valuable as a means of providing joy. One has to worry though, about whether individuals from affluent countries are being opportunistic, rather than altruistic in their dealings with individuals from poorer countries when it comes to trade or negotiation in bodies or bodily parts. Already a black market trade exists for human organs, particularly human kidneys.

Many people, weary of waiting for cadaveric or live donor kidneys in their own countries, travel to Iran, China, India, the Philippines and South America to have transplant surgery, which often involves the use of kidneys illegally procured from poor people. Commodification of the human body and (ab)use of the poor has now been extended by the common practice of rich women, unable to conceive or carry to term, who purchase ovum or rent out the uterus of a poor woman. This practice occurs particularly in India where surrogacy costs are considerably lower than those in the US or UK.