Help is pouring in for a poor Bangladeshi woman who put her eye on sale to buy food for her hungry two-year-old daughter.
Shefali Begum placed an unprecedented advertisement in Dhaka's mass-circulation Bengali daily Ittefaq offering to sell one of her eyes. Although there were no takers, newspapers, radio and TV channels went to town with her offer, sparking outrage across the backward Muslim nation and among Bangladeshis living abroad.
According to media reports, the 26-year-old woman lives in grinding poverty in a Dhaka slum after her husband deserted her for another woman.
Ironically, a school teacher advised her to sell off one of her eyes to make ends meet and instructed her how to go about it.
But all hell broke loose after the advertisement was published.
Although there has long been a thriving racket in kidney sales in countries like Bangladesh and India, it was the first time that an eye was for sale.
Her interviews and photographs were splashed in newspapers, shocking readers out of their stupor. Ms Begum said that selling her eye was her last resort because she was illiterate and her search for a job had proved futile.
