Delhi, India on Thursday after suffering...
16-year-old Babita Rajak underwent heart surgery in New Delhi, India
on Thursday after suffering from rheumatic heart disease for three
years. Her story made headlines in India because her desperate father,
Mahesh Rajak, was willing to sell his 13-year-old son, Devendra, as a
tem****ary laborer in order to raise funds for her surgery.
For three years his daughter, 16-year-old Babita, suffered from
rheumatic heart disease and needed a $7,500 operation to save her
life. Rajak is one of the 800 million Indians who make less than $2 a
day and could not afford medical help. So he decided to sell his most
prized -- and only -- asset: his 13-year-old son, Devendra.
''I want to get my daughter operated upon, but I have no money. This
is why I have put up my son for sale,'' Rajak told NDTV, an Indian
news channel, last week.
''I want to live, but my father is a poor man and he has no money for
my treatment,'' Babita said.
But today at the Max Devki Devi Heart and Vascular Institute, one of
the most expensive hospitals in New Delhi, Babita received her heart
surgery, and Rajak did not have to give up his son.
"I have been living with poverty for so many years," Rajak told ABC
News through an interpreter. "I was finally able to get her the help
she needs today."
The money came from the hospital and NDTV viewers, so touched by the
steps he was willing to take to save his daughter that they funded the
entire surgery.
"I don't discriminate between my son and my daughter. I was willing to
sell myself for the treatment of my daughter if I had to," Rajak said.
In a country with one of the lowest *** ratios at birth on the planet,
Rajak's willingness to part from his son for the benefit of his
daughter is a revelation, a choice that is the opposite of the one
made by family after family, in villages and in cities, every day and
every year.
In Uttar Pradesh, the state where Rajak lives, there are 885 girls
younger than four for every 1,000 boys in rural areas, according to
2006 census figures, the latest available. In the United States, the
average is closer to 1,050 girls for every 1,000 boys.
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