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Most people have probably heard of those horror stories. Blacking out, and the next thing you know, you are in a bathtub covered in ice. A laceration of the side of your body. A missing organ. Organ trafficking is defined as the “practice of using exploitation, coercion, or fraud to steal or illegally purchase or sell organs” () A lesser-known form of trafficking, organ trafficking has played a huge impact on the world because of the consequences that come from the profits people can make out of selling organs. The relatively low amount of available organs compared to the high number of people who need them, fuels a demand for organs that people are willing to pay any price for. Organ traffickers use this knowledge to help boost their market, as they sell the organs of the young and the old. Organ trafficking is a form of trafficking that goes by under the radar and should be brought to light because of the severe repercussions it can spawn.
Organ trafficking is the reason for many kidnappings and murders in a lot of countries. The desperate need for organs charges many traffickers to take advantage of the situation and earn money. In many cases, they decide to go to extreme lengths to get these organs, some lengths include murder and abduction. Jiayang Fan, a writer for the New Yorker detailed the heartbreaking story of a little boy from China named Guo Bin, who was subject to these horrible crimes. The Guo Bin. had awakened to a dark world in front of him and a bloody face. His eyes had been gouged out. “The boy told his mother that the last words spoken to him by the still-unidentified woman who kidnapped and drugged him were ‘Don’t cry, and I won’t gouge your eyes out’” (Fan). Organ trafficking was an extremely prominent illegal business in China. My research has led me to articles and documentaries about how China would forcibly harvest organs from prisoners and around that period the organ market was booming at 1 billion dollars even though there were not that many donors on the official lists (Perry). Kidneys, hearts, livers, and corneas were all trafficked around the world for profit, leading people to believe that Guo Bin had fallen victim to one of these crimes. Corneas would be up to 30,000 US dollars, making them extremely profitable especially if they were healthy eyes. This is a clear motive for someone to attack young Guo Bin and steal his eyes. He was not the only one. There are many stories of people being trafficked to get their organs harvested all over the world. More people have experienced similar stories. For example, “an African girl (who) was kidnapped and rescued in the UK before her organs could be harvested” (Perry). However, despite what I thought there were not as many recorded cases of organ trafficking as I had expected. Yet, many articles detailed that large numbers of people meet the same fate as Guo Bin. But, there are not many records of what happened. This goes to show just how organ trafficking goes under the radar a lot of the time and is not discussed enough. People are still physically forced to give away their organs against their will in many countries. However, more commonly people are coerced into agreeing to traffic their organs in many places.
Organ Trafficking targets and manipulates vulnerable populations all around the world. This is a common pattern seen in all kinds of trafficking, organ trafficking not being excluded from the list. In many countries struck by poverty, people are compelled to do anything to get them money. This is discussed in the BBC News article, “Iraqi families sell organs to overcome poverty”. In the article, the author, Ahmed Maher details the story of a poor Iraqi family who contemplated selling their kidneys to get money to support their family. He discusses how people were taking advantage of poor families for their benefit. In the article, there is an interview with a human rights lawyer named Firas al-Bayati. Firal al-Bayati tells Maher, “‘I have personally dealt over the past three months with 12 people who were arrested for selling their kidneys. And poverty was the reason behind their acts,’” (Bayati qtd in Maher). Human organs have a high price, especially organs such as the corneas, lungs, and perhaps the most popular of them all the kidneys. Kidneys are known to be sold for around 10,000 and 60,000 US dollars. Knowing that poverty has struck many places, organ traffickers have an easy target for people who are desperate for money and have found a new way to profit. “Gangs, offering up to $10,000 (£7,000) for a kidney, have increasingly targeted the country's poor, making it a new hub for the organ trade across the Middle East” (Meher). This is a major issue because many poor people are desperate and will do anything to get money to support their families. They are easily manipulated into selling their organs and taking part in organ trafficking. As a result, the poor easily become simple targets to be exploited.
Although some may argue that organ trafficking can give money to people who need it, in reality, many people do not receive the money that they had expected to receive leaving them in an even worse state. A prime example of this is the story of Sundar Singh Jatav, a migrant worker from India. Jatav was looking for a way to pay off his family’s debts when his boss told him to sell his kidney for $10,000. According to the PBS news article discussing Jatav’s story, after Jatav had given up his kidney, “Jatav was never paid, so he leaked part of the forged transplant application, which stated, incorrectly, that he and the recipient of his kidney are relatives, as required by law in India” (Holmes and Sagalyn). Jatav’s story is only one of many, where the poor are taken advantage of so that organ traffickers can get money. Furthermore, in the BBC News article, Iraqi families sell organs to overcome poverty, Meher got access to an Iraqi prison where they interviewed a man who had been caught in organ trafficking. After discussing what he had done, the man, Mohammad had said that he “initially did not feel guilty,” but he soon began to look at what he did differently. “‘I used to look at it as a humanitarian cause, but after a few months in this trade, I started questioning the morality - mostly because of the miserable conditions of the organ sellers. It broke my heart seeing young people doing this for money” (Mehmer). Muhammad clearly explains that people were already in such a bad condition, but by selling their organs it only became worse.
Ultimately, organ trafficking is a silent form of trafficking that needs to be regulated more to prevent more people from getting hurt. Our history has clearly shown the way that organ traffickers physically and mentally manipulate people into doing things that will forever hurt their bodies so that traffickers can get cash. Whether that be from actually kidnapping and killing people to preying on people who are subject to poverty, organ traffickers know exactly who to target. Despite the so-called “stealthy” way organ trafficking happens, there are ways to prevent things like this from happening. The government has resources that could help regulate organ trade more, but there is still more room for improvement. The first step is talking about it more and making people more aware. We might live in a secure place but you never know that the next place you travel to, you could end up waking up in a bathtub, with an organ missing.
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