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Lal Singh, a farmer, was desperate. He had seen unseasonably heavy rain and hail destroy crop after crop. And, his debt kept rising.
Finally, in August last year, with no way to feed his family, Singh felt he had only one choice: He sold his two sons to a shepherd for a year of labour, in exchange for Rs 35,000.
"I was in no position to repay the debt and needed more money to make ends meet and plant a crop," Singh said in an interview. He made the decision, he said, despite knowing "it was illegal and they (his sons) could be abused and forced to work in cruel conditions".
Worsening crop failures, brought on by extreme weather, are leading to increasing financial desperation in Madhya Pradesh, as well as a rash of suicides and child trafficking, officials say.
According to Rajnish Shrivastava, district collector of Harda district, authorities rescued five children from forced labour in April, all from Khargone and Harda districts.
Officials believed there could be many other cases of farmers trading their children for money, he said. "It is a matter of concern that farmers have been forced to sell their kids to repay debt…We can't allow children to be abused and trafficked this way," he says.
Eight months after being sold into labour, Singh's children were among the five rescued, Shrivastava said. Sumit, 12, and Amit, 11, fled from the shepherd and were taken to a local shelter, officials said. Initially reluctant to return to their family for fear of how their parents would react, the boys were now back home, they added.
"Our job was to look after the sheep and other animals," Amit told Thomson Reuters Foundation. "(The shepherd) thrashed us over trivial issues. We weren't even given two meals a day. As things became intolerable, we took courage and fled."
"Trading our children was wrong but we were forced to do this just to stay alive," Sumit and Amit's mother, Manibai, said in an interview. "Otherwise, like many other farmers, we would also have been forced to commit suicide."
Authorities have ordered an investigation into the matter and the shepherds who allegedly bought the five rescued children have been charged with unlawful confinement of children and are awaiting trial, Shrivastava says.
Vishnu Jaiswal, director of the Harda branch of children's charity Childline, says officials from his charity and the government will visit the rescued children's families from time to time to ensure they are being well looked after.
India has seen an alarming rate of suicides among farmers, as extreme weather continues to lead to unprecedented crop losses in many parts of the country. According to state government data, Madhya Pradesh was among the states hit the hardest this year, with about 570,000 hectares of the rabi crop devastated by unusually heavy rain and hail.
Between February and May this year, about 40 farmers committed suicide or died from stress-related causes in Madhya Pradesh, state police and revenue officials said.
The situation was difficult in parts of other states, too, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Punjab, said Sachin Jain, an activist with the Right to Food campaign, an informal network of organisations working to ensure right to food in India.
"It is very serious," said Gauri Shankar Bisen, Madhya Pradesh's agriculture minister. "We are investigating the matter and have directed district collectors to provide compensation to farmers as soon as possible."
The governments of most states affected by extreme weather have announced relief packages for farmers. But activists claim the process of delivering relief is taking very long, with authorities still assessing the damage in some regions.
Corruption in some areas means farmers see very little financial aid, Jain says.
"Often, the compensation amount is far from enough for farmers to repay their debts…When farmers aren't able to get loans from banks, they're forced to borrow from private moneylenders who charge interest at exorbitant rates. They are painfully aware that they won't get relief."
