The Cost of Debt
Family debt forced mothers and fathers to surrender their children to the state-run Office of Financial affairs. As commodities of the state, children could be bought and sold until the age of 18. By law, the collectors could gather children to satisfy unpaid debt using any means necessary.
It was too late. Pleading for more time and promising to sell a kidney, she watched as the collector and two armed security guards load her eight year old son into the back of a truck. The boy was crying. He begged not to go. She yelled out his name and cried, “I’ll get you back!”