A woman has been arrested for attempting to sell her 7-year-old son to total strangers for the sum of £4,000.
The 36-year-old mother-of-three identified only as Nargiza, allegedly advertised her son as being up for sale in an attempt to pay off accumulated debts.
Nargiza has however, been detained under Russia’s child trafficking laws after volunteers from an anti-slavery charity responded to her advertisements.
She was said to have met with the “buyers” at a shopping centre to carry out the sales but it turn out that the buyers were volunteers from an anti-slavery charity who responded to her advertisements and posed as buyers.
Nargiza claimed her seven-year-old son “didn’t mind” being transferred to another family for a sum of money.
A spokesperson for the charity said, “Until the end we hoped it was a made-up story, that this was someone’s stupid joke or a fraud for money.
“However, when our group, together with the employees of the organised crime investigation group, left for the ‘deal’, we witnessed the boy being sold.
“Nargiza received the money and gave the child to a person she did not know.”
The 36-year-old was taken into custody while her son, who was said to have been from a previous partner and disliked by her current husband, was placed into medical care.
Alternativa’s spokesperson added: “Nargiza explained that her husband did not like her eldest son, and they decided to sell the child to pay off their debts.”
