By Waliur Rahman
BBC News, Dhaka |
 Shefali Begum seems unaware she would be breaking the law |
A Bangladeshi woman has placed an advert in a newspaper offering to sell one of her eyes. Shefali Begum, who lives in the capital, Dhaka, told the BBC it was her only way to escape from poverty.
She said she had no money for rent or to feed her daughter. Doctors fear her advert might start a trend among the poor. No-one has taken up her offer.
The sale of any organ, whether the donor is dead or alive, is illegal in Bangladeshi law, but rarely enforced.
Adverts offering kidneys for sale appear regularly in Bangladeshi newspapers.
Husband left
Shefali Begum, 26, lives with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a tiny bamboo and corrugated-tin room in the east of the capital. They have no furniture.
 |  One of my neighbours gave me some rice that I ate in the morning - I don't know what I am going to eat for lunch or dinner |
She says her husband of four years left her last month, and she is penniless.
"I have no education, so it's not possible for me, a single mother, to get a decent job," she said.
"All I want is some money so that I can buy a piece of land for my daughter. I would not repent if that causes me blindness."
Ophthalmologists in Bangladesh say it is the first time they have heard of someone trying to sell their eye.
Cornea transplants are permitted in the country only after the donor has died. The government declined to comment on the case.
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