Mamareen

On November 22, 2018, CNN posted a story about an Afghanistan mother who had sold her six-year-old daughter due to a drought. Having no husband nor a breadwinner in her remaining family, Mamareen had no choice but to flee from the drought and start anew in another area, where she expected life would be better. But, her situation did not improve. Mamareen and her three children were still in poverty and were in desperate need for a source of money for food. With “no other choice,” Mamareen sold her 6-year-old daughter to another family, marrying the girl off to a 10-year-old boy. In this way, Mamareen avoided her and her remaining childrens’ death from starvation. When reporters asked the mother about the decision to sell her child, Mamareen said, “who would sell a piece of their heart unless they really have to?”

As a mother living in an area of Afghanistan suffering from drought and poverty, Mamareen did not have the resources to properly take care of her three children. To take care of one’s children, one needs a proper source of money to acquire necessities such as food and shelter. As stated by Mamareen herself, with “no other choice,” she had to sell her 6-year-old daughter so that her other children would not die from starvation. The Afghanistan mother would not have sold her beloved daughter if she had any other option, as implied by her words “who would sell a piece of their heart unless they really have to?”. The fact that she refers to her daughter as “a piece of[her]heart” means that she thought of her daughter as a piece of herself—which proves to readers the high level of sacrifice required to let go of one’s child. This high level of sacrifice required leads to the idea that a mother would never kill her child unless it was really the last and only option available for the increase of overall well-being. In Mamareen’s case, she had to let go of her child so that the overall well-being of her family would increase.