She's right
As someone who has ethnic roots in that part of the world, people do some ugly things to stay alive over there. The culture's much different to yours and mine. Parents are regarded as "All-Knowing-Beings" pretty much, and any kind of argument, disagreement or flaw you find with them is absolutely futile. And the father's word is final. That child never had a chance from the moment her dad said go, and neither do many children in the slums. You have to understand the slums are like a cycle, Born in-Die in. Ever seen the movie Slumdog Millionare? As disgraceful as it is a depiction of India (or many Indians say), you come to understand what people come to do to break out. I couldn't imagine myself living my whole life in a slum like that, or working from the day I was born, and I'm sure you could bring yourself to do horrible things for a real shot at life, even if that means selling your daughter.
I'm not trying to justify this in any way, in any case, I feel like I'm playing Devil's Advocate with myself, but you have to take the situation from their POV. If someone in a reasonably affluent American household (affluent compared to the slums of India) tried to sell their daughter, of course that's inhumane x10, because the percentage of the population that "matters" so to speak in America have a radically different culture to their social rung polar opposites in India. In India you could almost call it a way of life.
The sad truth is that many fathers would override their paternal instincts (not sure if I got that one right) and buy into slavery etc, because when logic comes down to it, out of a family of four if one child is sold and the two parents and sibling can move to Mumbai (which has it's own lower class I understand, but is also in a better position than some parts of the country), then wouldn't that be better than the whole family dying in the slums? I would never say I'd do that, but their life is different to yours and mine.
