ORGAN TRAFFICKING

Organ trafficking is perhaps the least profiled form of human trafficking. There has been no empirical research, but individual stories and investigations of illegally harvested organs surface on a regular basis. With the improvement of health care, life expectancy has increased resulting in a large population of older people. Simultaneously, medical and technological developments have facilitated the transplantation of organs, which has become a rather routine procedure. This normally would not present a problem, except for the fact that demand far exceeds the supply, and the shortage is acute. Between 1990 and 2003, kidney donations in the United States increased by 33%, but people awaiting a kidney for transplant increased by 236%.

The shortage in organs donation is due, in part, to religious beliefs that the body should be buried intact. In addition, there is a fear of hospitals intentionally allowing patients to die to harvest their organs for paying patients. The waiting period for an organ form a cadaver, usually a kidney (Which accounts for the most sales of organs throughout the world), varies from one country to the next. In the U.S and Britain, the average wait is two to three years. In Asia the wait is eight years. In the Gulf States the wait is even longer. This long wait has led many in need of a kidney to try to obtain one from a live donor.

While organs harvested from deceased donors are packed in ice and transported around the world by plane, the harvesting of organs from a live person involves the travel of both donor and/or recipient to the place where the transplant will occur. The discussion around the phenomenon is not about the trafficking of organs, per se, but the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of organ removal. This is considered human trafficking even when the donors agree to voluntarily sell their organs. The trade of kidneys from live donors generally flows from poor, underdeveloped countries to rich, developed countries. China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, and Romania are among the world's leading providers of trafficked organs. China is known for harvesting and selling organs from executed prisoners, the other countries have been dealing essentially with living donors, becoming stakeholders in the fast-growing human trafficking web.

Kidneys very according to their abundance and bring their donors different amounts, depending on where the donor is living. According to one expert an African or Indian kidney may bring the donor as little as $1000. A Filipino kidney is worth slightly more and could bring the donor $1,300; A Moldovan or Romanian kidney is worth $2700; Peruvian or a Turkish kidney donor can command up to $10,000. or more. Sellers in the United States can receive up to $30,000. This is just the offering price and the actual price paid to a donor can decrease dramatically depending upon supply of organ.

In addition, there are organ brokers who recruit donors from bars, flea markets and slums areas in poor countries. This crime, unlike other forms of trafficking, cannot take place without the participation of professional medical staff operating in hospitals or private clinics. In India, police arrested middlemen, donors and several doctors including a transplant surgeon, as well as, the principal of the Government Medical College. Police estimated that between 1997 and 2002, 31.4 million dollars changed hands between the donors, middlemen and doctors. The organ seller, poor migrant laborers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, were paid between $525 and $1,050, while the recipients were charges between $104,600 and $209,200 dollars.

Not all donors consent to sell their organs. Persons can be kidnapped, killed or sold for their organs. The United Nation reported that in regards to trafficking in children for the purpose of organ removal, although there is no conclusive evidence, a number of reports indicate that many abducted or missing children have subsequently been found dead, their bodies mutilated and certain organs removed. Another method of obtaining an organ is through deception or coercion. A person is told that he/she will be donating blood and is then coerced into selling a kidney. As was the case in the Philippines, police near Manila raided a house and freed nine men who were being held by a gang that lured them with the promise of good jobs. Instead they drugged or forced them, sometimes by gunpoint to agree to “donate” a kidney. In the state of Tamil Nadu, India, 71% of the 305 respondents in a study of kidney sellers were women. 60% of women and all of the men were street vendors. Some of the women reported that they were forced to sell their kidney by their husband. Other studies have found that many organ sellers in India are women, and in some cases the kidney may be sold to pay for the dowry for a daughter’s wedding.

The most common form of trafficking in organs involves cases in which the donor and recipient agree to the sale. While donors may initially consent to selling a kidney, buyers exploit their desperation, poverty, and ignorance. The organ trafficking expert, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, identified a case in Tel Aviv Israel where a mentally deficient criminal sold a kidney to his lawyer who then paid the man half of what was promised. In another case in Canada, a man received a kidney from his Filipino domestic worker. He justified this “donation” using the argument that “Filipinos are people who are anxious to please their bosses.”

Exploitation extends beyond the mere fact that the donors are not adequately advised of the risks or compensated for the loss of a kidney. Victims of organ trafficking may be promised complete post operation medical care, but this rarely happens. Organs Watch, which conducted research on organ trafficking in countries around the world, found that none of the donors interviewed had been treated by a doctor a year after the operation, despite frequent complaints of weakness and pain. Some had even been turned away from the same hospital that had performed the surgery. Police in Punjab India reported that donors were not provided proper postoperative care, were thrown out of the hospital one week after the surgery, and were threatened with imprisonment for participating in illegal organ transplant. As a result many poor organ donors suffer painful complications and infections without any medical help. In addition, many kidney sellers develop health problems, such as high blood pressure and urinary tract infections.

SOURCES
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