Venezuelan women sell their hair in order to buy basic necessities, by Reuters.

Women from Venezuela are crossing the border in droves and selling their hair in a Colombian border town in order to afford scarce basic necessities such as food, diapers or medicines.

The trend, which has taken off in recent weeks, is another sign of the oil-rich country’s deepening crisis amid shortages and spiralling inflation that have millions skipping meals and forgoing costly medical treatment. …

About 200 women a day are taking up their offer at one of seven makeshift stands dotting La Parada, according to estimates from five middlemen. The locks are then sold as extensions in the western Colombian city of Cali.

Celina Gonzales, a 45-year-old street vendor, stood in line for an hour to sell her mid-length brown hair for 60,000 Colombian pesos, or about $20 – the equivalent of a monthly minimum wage and food tickets back home. …

Maribel, a poor woman from Venezuela’s Tachira state, travelled to Colombia after her brother told her about the hair business. “I’m here because I have nothing to eat,” she said, but she was later rebuffed because her hair was too short and thin.

Too much socialism ruined a land of plenty. Take note, socialists in the West who once sought to emulate Venezuela’s socialists.

hat-tip Matthew