Haitian mothers forced to choose which children will live or die

I remember watching interviews from Americans complaining about the economy and having to give up spending some money this Christmas. I complain about it myself. Things will be very simple in my house this year. Not that I've been extravagant in the past. My daughter gets to pick one big thing she really wants and the rest of what she's given are usually necessities. I have to admit that after reading this story, I feel horrible to have such a materialistic concern while mothers in Haiti are trying to figure out which child they feed so they can live and which child will be allowed to die from starvation. Imagine that being forced to have to make that kind of decision at all and know, as bad as things are here for some, there are other parts of the world where our problems seem like impossible dreams.

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Haitian mothers forced to choose which children will live or die



By John Blake
CNN

(CNN) -- Some mothers choose what their children will eat. Others choose which children will eat and which will die.


Those mothers forced to make the grim life-or-death choices are the impoverished women Patricia Wolff, executive director of Meds & Food for Kids, encounters during her frequent trips to Haiti.

Wolff says Haitians are so desperate for food that many mothers wait to name their newborns because so many infants die of malnourishment. Other Haitian mothers keep their children alive by parceling out food to them, but some make an excruciating choice when their food rationing fails, she says.

"It's horrible. They have to choose among their children," says Wolff, whose nonprofit group was formed to fight childhood malnutrition. "They try to keep them alive by feeding them, but sometimes they make the decision that this one has to go."

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies." Four decades later, King's wish remains unfulfilled. The global food market's shelves are getting bare, hunger activists say -- and it will get worse.
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/17/hunger.week/index.html