Kidney Valley in Nepal - Human Organ Market

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Nepalese province of Kawre has another, unofficial name - "Valley of the Kidneys". Here in every home there is at least one person who sold his kidney on the black market.

In this country, the organ transplant trade is a well-established business. The mediators promise people who live in poverty huge money by local standards - from $ 500 to $ 3,000 - and assure that the remote organ will "grow back."

As a result, many of those who agreed become disabled and often do not even receive the entire agreed amount.

Kidney Village in Nepal

Hawkse in Nepal is called the "kidney village". Almost all residents here entered into a deal with dealers in human organs.

In one of the villages of Nepal, which was damaged in April and May 2015 by the strongest earthquakes, local residents live in makeshift tents made of film and boards. The Nepalese, who were left homeless by the elements, cannot build new houses. Most of them bought their previous home with money from the sale of their own kidneys. Hawkse in Nepal is called the "kidney village". Almost all residents here entered into a deal with dealers in human organs. A local 37-year-old woman named Gita told The Daily Mail that she sold her kidney to buy the family a house. As a result, the building was destroyed by an earthquake.

A resident of Nepal traveled to India, where her organ was removed and she was paid 200 thousand Nepalese rupees (almost two thousand dollars) for it. Gita bought a plot of land in Hawkes, 12 miles from the capital of Nepal, and spent the rest of the amount on building a stone house. After a monstrous earthquake of magnitude 7, 9, the dwelling turned into ruins. Geeta now lives with four children in a shack made of tarpaulins, garbage bags and corrugated iron sheets. The woman was persuaded to sell the kidney by her relative. The operation to remove the organ lasted about half an hour, after which Gita spent another three weeks in the hospital.

Nearly all Hawkse residents have stories to share. Organ traders often visit the village and invite locals for operations that take place in southern India. As the journalists found out, this is a fairly large and well-coordinated business. Dealers use various tricks to persuade villagers to sell their organs. However, a desperate desire for a roof over their heads pushes people to this risky step. As journalists note, many residents of Hawkes, crushed by the consequences of the earthquake and total poverty, began to drink too much. At the same time, organ trade is only developing: now people who have been left homeless again need to get money in some way.

The World Health Organization estimates that up to 10,000 transplants are performed annually using organs obtained from the black market. Up to 7,000 kidneys are illegally transplanted annually. Organ traffickers are targeted in many ways. Sometimes people are kidnapped or killed; someone voluntarily agrees to an operation for the sake of money; someone is deprived of organs without the knowledge during operations, supposedly aimed at providing medical assistance to a person. Children from low-income families are often targeted by organ traffickers. Organ trafficking is not limited to Asia. One of the largest international investigations into the trafficking of human organs - the so-called "black transplant" case - took place in Kosovo. There was also a gang of "black transplantologists" in Ukraine.