[India] Victims of poverty protest in Jammu

from NDTV

Vikram Chowdhury

At least 400 migrant workers staged demonstrations in Jammu to highlight their state of poverty.

It comes a day after NDTV reported that workers sold their children to survive.

The protestors besieged a governing Congress party member of Parliament when he visited them - causing injuries to five people.

The migrants have been homeless for the last eight years since anti-India militancy broke out.

"Three children we have already given away and eight years have past. Now we are ready to give a girl away too," said Krishna Devi, a demonstrator.

"We have nothing to eat, we can't afford their school expenditure, fees, their transport fare," she said.

Dalip Singh, another migrant worker earns about Rs 30-40 rupees as a laborer.

Last year he sold two sons to a local in Reasi for Rs 11,000 and his sons would be returned only when he paid back with interest.

"My wife was ill I was forced to borrow money and then I had give my children to them. I could not work because my shoulder fractured," said Singh.