Organ Trafficking - The Black Market

Black market organ transplantation presents a lot of problems for a lot of people. Vulnerable groups, such those living in poor, rural communities, are frequently taken advantage of. People are murdered, or graves are robbed. There are major health risks to both the donor and recipient. And with only about ten percent of the global demand for organs being met, the problem of black market organs appears to be insurmountable.

The Iranian Model

It is for reasons like these that many experts advocate for the Iranian model. About 30 years ago, the number of people with serious kidney-related issues skyrocketed in Iran. With treatments failing and costs going up, the government began paying relatives to donate kidneys and have the operations abroad. The program was somewhat of a success, with patient deaths falling, but costs still rose. So they set up their own service for organ donation, with centers all across Iran. They followed this by enacting legislation that would allow unrelated people to donate, albeit with no choice as to who the organ would go to.

Within a year, donations had doubled, with the vast majority coming from unrelated donors. In exchange for donating, donors would receive payments and free health insurance, and post-op care was improved for all.[6] The government also made every effort to suppress transplant tourism by banning foreigners from entering the country and getting an Iranian kidney, by only allowing refugees and vulnerable people to donate to others within their own group, and by outlawing any form of payment to hospital staff or middlemen.

One of the most interesting results is the fact that there are no major demographic differences between the recipient and the donor groups, meaning that the rich and powerful are donating and receiving just as much as the weak and vulnerable. Another interesting point is that organs donated after a person has died only account for ten percent of donations in Iran, whereas they account for 60 percent in the US. That being said, Iran still gets plenty of cadaveric donations; they just also attract a huge number of living donors at the same time.



Black Market Magic

In 2013, one of the largest hospitals in Swaziland got caught up in a major controversy. Employees at Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital were accused of running a black market for organs, allegedly selling them to buyers from neighboring countries. All of this is done for a practice known as muti, a form of traditional sub-Saharan medicine, aka magic.

Muti is most powerful when using freshly removed body parts, and although muti murders for this purpose do occur, they are not tracked. Since committing murder after murder would draw too much attention, staff at this hospital supposedly began harvesting the organs of recently deceased patients and selling them to be used in creams, potions, and powders. Demand for fresh body parts in the area has also led to an increase in grave robbing, with the deceased often being robbed of their eyes, hands, and genitals.

Article by ListVerse