Organ trafficking: a new form of slavery

Human organ transplantation is one of the most terrible scourges of today's society. It is a form of slavery that affects the poorest. In the least developed countries, especially in Asia, many people live with primary needs and in the absence of a fair income wage, in their own country and also in the world, there are people who find themselves in need of selling' their organs so that unscrupulous traffickers can sell them to patients in rich countries.

It is a clandestine trade that maims human beings, causing them much pain, if not death. There is also trafficking in organs removed from the bodies of recently deceased persons. Kidneys, heart, lungs, eyes, cornea, skin, pancreas, intestines, etc., are removed, generating a growing "black market" for organs. For three decades, the problem of organ trafficking has been on the agenda of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr. David Tushaus of Missouri Western State University, a specialist in the illegal trade in human organs, said that in "transplant tourism", organ sellers are often poor people desperate for a little money.

Some 120,000 transplants are performed annually worldwide. According to WHO, an estimated 5 to 10 percent of transplants are illegal.

One of the countries that are most criticised for these illegal and inhumane procedures is the People's Republic of China. Beijing says it has now stopped putting the organs of executed prisoners on the market, but supporters of ethical transplants reject it. The president of the International Society for Transplantation, Philippe O'Connell, recently said that China

As Philippe O'Connell told the Madrid daily newspaper ABC, "scientific evidence", he said, is that between 40 and 70 percent of "transplant tourists", i.e., those who accept or donate illegal organs, "develop at least one infectious complication and 20-50% of them a fatal infection. Some of these infections are caused by organisms resistant to available antibiotic treatments, which would be imported into the country of origin of these patients when they return after a transplant performed under inappropriate conditions. There are countries that have a clear lack of health structures.

A recent Organ Transplant Congress in Hong Kong again lifted caution against China. According to Carlos Iglesias, a lawyer with the NGO Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), "thousands and thousands of prisoners of conscience, followers of the Falung Gong spiritual discipline, Tibetans, Uighurs and Christians, locked up in prisons or forced-labor camps, have been killed for their organs. His kidneys, livers, corneas, and hearts are forcibly removed, after payment from those who will receive these organs of up to 130,000 dollars, generating a multi-million dollar business with the suffering of thousands of people in China," he said. He recently filed a petition backed by 250,000 signatures against forced removal of organs.

The International Society for Transplantation (IST) and the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) have warned everyone, along with WHO, to avoid "transplant tourism". And one of the solutions is for every organ transplant to be publicly notified in every country. The lack of transparency is very dangerous for health because in many cases the health of the donor is unknown.

The causes of this transplant tourism are manifold: the destitution of donors, the scarce or non-existent capacity of the health system in many countries to perform organ transplants, and those who need a transplant, being between life and death, seek a sometimes desperate solution.

According to Organs Watch, in the global market, one Indian or one African kidney is paid for $1,000, in the Philippines $1,300, and $2,700 in Moldova or Romania. However, according to Doctors David Kilgour (USA) and David Matas (Canada), who fight against the sale of human organs, for a pancreas transplant they pay between 98,000 and 130,000 dollars, for a liver 150,000, for a lung 150,000, for a cornea 30,000, for a heart 130,000 and 160,000 and for a kidney 62,000. The majority of transplants in the world are kidney transplants.

The countries from which organ buyers come are Canada, USA, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Taiwan, mainly. And the territories where organs are obtained are Kosovo, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Egypt, China, USA, Panama, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Romania, Moldova, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.