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Posted: **2003-09-30 07:48am**

Parents 'swap child for TV'
September 30, 2003

A poverty-stricken Albanian couple has reportedly admitted handing over one of their five children to a gang of human traffickers in return for a colour television.

The gang subsequently sold the three-year-old boy to an elderly Italian couple for 5,000 euro ($A8,520), according to the Italian news agency ANSA citing judicial sources.

According to the report, the boy's father, knowing that the traffickers were dangerous, agreed to the deal.

The gang was broken up by Italian police several months ago and when the arrest of leader Besim Metani was announced, the boy's mother came forward, the report said.

Italian and Albanian investigators finally traced the boy to the town of Sersale in the south of the country, where he had been living since 1999 with Angelo Borelli, 69, and his wife Iole Rodio, 57, under the name of Michele.

The child, now aged 7, was put into the care of Italian social services until the legal authorities make a decision on whether to send him back to Albania.

The trafficking gang is alleged to have brought about 60 children into Italy by similar means.

Police spokesman Pierpaolo Maraffa said his officers were still trying to trace around 30 children in and around the town of Pescara on the Adriatic coast facing Albania.

This is just fucking sick, now the kid is 7 let's just see how this child grows up knowing fully that he was traded for a fucking TV. They should have left him in Italy.

Posted: **2003-09-30 08:45am**

I think the childs parents were very poor. Very poor people do things like this out of desparation. In the very poorest parts of the world children are sold for even lower prices, at least the Albanians got a TV. It is a very evil thing but we will never be able to stop it untill poverty is eradicated.

Posted: **2003-09-30 08:55am**

I hope you aren't trying to make excuses for that shit, Evil..there's not any. Those people should be...I don't know...something bad.

Posted: **2003-09-30 09:08am**

evilcat4000 wrote:I think the childs parents were very poor. Very poor people do things like this out of desparation. In the very poorest parts of the world children are sold for even lower prices, at least the Albanians got a TV. It is a very evil thing but we will never be able to stop it untill poverty is eradicated.

It was for a colour TV. You don't need a colour TV. Wealth status means jackshit when you're talking about trading a child for a fucking want like a colour TV! Are you really trying to excuse these pathetic parents?

Posted: **2003-09-30 09:08am**

Chardok wrote:I hope you aren't trying to make excuses for that shit, Evil..there's not any. Those people should be...I don't know...something bad.

I am not defending them. I am just saying that things like this will happen as long as poverty is there.

Posted: **2003-09-30 09:10am**

evilcat4000 wrote:
Chardok wrote:I hope you aren't trying to make excuses for that shit, Evil..there's not any. Those people should be...I don't know...something bad.
I am not defending them. I am just saying that things like this will happen as long as poverty is there.

No, things like this will happen as long as insanity is around.

Posted: **2003-09-30 09:14am**

evilcat4000 wrote:
Chardok wrote:I hope you aren't trying to make excuses for that shit, Evil..there's not any. Those people should be...I don't know...something bad.
I am not defending them. I am just saying that things like this will happen as long as poverty is there.

fuck that! I agree with BS on this (for once). Trading a kid for food, sure i can see that as an act of desperation....but a fucking tv? that is an act of stupidity and GREED.

Posted: **2003-09-30 09:25am**

The article doesn't really say whether the family sold the kid specifically for the TV. We know they *got* a TV, but it doesn't *really* say that's motive. The headline is rather sensational, and the focus on the TV sells the story too well. I'm sure it could have been written differently, with less focus on the TV, and more on the emotional state of the parents at the time.

That being said, I'll play devil's advocate:

Is the Albanian gov't-run orphan system any better than the "guy who sells them to Italy"?

I know that in the gov't system it'd be the gov't getting the cash and the family wouldn't get a TV... but other than that, are the parents any more evil if they chose to abandon the kid at an orphanage rather than give him to somebody with a track-record of sending kids to more prosperous Italy?

Posted: **2003-09-30 05:48pm**

I say charges should be pressed on the parents. Selling a child for a TV set is just plain crazy.

Posted: **2003-09-30 07:54pm**

Could the parents afford to feed the extra mouth?
Is the kid better off where he ended up?
The story says one of five children. Was this the heartbreaker choice, which of my children must go, that I may feed the rest? Was he the oldest, largest, and hungryest child?

Keep them all, and starve, or lose one and be hungry?
Or we just don't want to be bothered?
This could be hearts of stone, or the toughest no win choice a parent can make.

Posted: **2003-09-30 08:04pm**

EmperorChrostas the Cruel wrote:Could the parents afford to feed the extra mouth?
Is the kid better off where he ended up?
The story says one of five children. Was this the heartbreaker choice, which of my children must go, that I may feed the rest? Was he the oldest, largest, and hungryest child?

Keep them all, and starve, or lose one and be hungry?
Or we just don't want to be bothered?
This could be hearts of stone, or the toughest no win choice a parent can make.

Yeah, but....they got a color TV not fucking food so that goes way out the window.

Posted: **2003-09-30 08:26pm**

If they're that poor how will they afford the electricty? Stupid bastards.~Jason