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SARGODA, Pakistan (CNN) -- Mohammed Iqbal said he has been told by his landlord to pay up on debts and is left with a choice facing others in this impoverished corner of Pakistan: Sell your children or a kidney.

This man's landlord forced him to pay off money he borrowed for his children's medical bills.
more photos » For the 50-year-old Iqbal, there is only one option. Despite a law passed in late 2007 banning transplants for money, he has decided to sell his kidney and has already been for pre-operation tests. The sale will net him between $1,100 and $1,600.

"What's incredible here is the law that bans the operation he's going to go through came into place in 2007," said CNN's Nic Robertson. "He's still able to go to a doctor, the doctors given him advice, that's what he has to do under law... He's going to make money out of it 100,000-150,000 rupees, and that is absolutely illegal. Yet, in just a few days, he's expecting to sell his kidney."

Iqbal was not alone in facing this difficult decision. Others in Pakistan's rural heartland have opted to sell their kidneys.

One of them was Rab Nawas, who was deep in debt about a year ago to his landlord after borrowing money to pay for his wedding and to cover medical bills for his wife and six children. He, too, faced the choice: sell his children, his wife or a kidney.