Selling eye for a handful rice

Shefali Begum - worried for her daughter's future

The BBC in Bangladesh has received offers of help from around the world for a woman who placed an advertisement in a newspaper to sell one of her eyes.

The single mother, Shefali Begum, told the BBC it was her only way to escape from poverty as she cannot find work.

The sale of any human organ is illegal under Bangladeshi law.

The first call came from a Dhaka-based official of the World Bank, after the BBC's Bengali Service broadcast an interview with the woman.

Setting up account

The caller told the BBC's Dhaka bureau that he was extremely upset by the story of the 26-year old mother and wanted to help Ms Begum.

She lives with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in a tiny bamboo and corrugated tin room in the east of the capital, Dhaka.

She said her husband of four years left her last month, and she had no money for rent or to feed her daughter.

"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," she told the BBC on Wednesday.

She said she was unaware she would be breaking Bangladeshi law.

She placed the advertisement in a Bengali-language daily last Sunday. No-one has responded to the advert.

But there are people all over the world who want to help her and the child, but wish to remain anonymous.

"I am completely shocked," an engineer from Canada said in an e-mail to the BBC after reading Ms Begum's story on the BBC News website.

"I want to help this lady. How can I help her?" he asked.

A listener to the Bengali radio service wrote that he would like to "help and rehabilitate" Ms Begum and her daughter. "I would like to take financial responsibility for about a year - for her food, shelter and basic needs."

A woman from US wrote that she was also poor, but that her retirement income allows her to offer the impoverished Bangladeshi woman the means to "escape dire poverty without having to sell any organ or aspect of her body".

Identifying herself as a Buddhist, the e-mailer said: "I believe that we are in this life to share what we have with those who have less and are in need."

There are many others who have asked how they can contribute to her bank account.

The woman however, who lives in a slum, at present has no bank account. However, arrangements are now being made so that she can open an account in the coming days.