What is organ trafficking?

According to the UN Trafficking Protocol, organ trafficking occurs where a third party recruits, transports, transfers, harbors or receives a person, using threats (or use) of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of authority or a position of vulnerability for the purpose of removing that persons organ/s. Where children are concerned, the removal of an organ(s) facilitated by a third party constitutes trafficking with or without considerations of deception or coercion.

What is known about the scope of organ trafficking?

The scope of organ trafficking, like other forms of trafficking, has been difficult to measure due to its clandestine nature.  Furthermore, as stated in the recently published report by the Secretary-General of the UN Economic and Social Council, entitled “Preventing, combating, and punishing trafficking in human organs, “A global comparison of trafficking in human organs and tissues is constrained by the lack of a uniform definition and the absence of consistent statistics and criminal reports. Organ trafficking offences are either associated with other types of crime and therefore registered as such or, because of the fear or shame experienced by the victims, are not reported at all.”

While it is difficult to estimate the exact number of organ transplants, advancements in transplant science have produced a steady growth in the number of organ transplants conducted annually.  Organ-failure patients’ access to a transplant varies significantly throughout the world, depending on the level of development and on factors such as the availability of organs (as well as tissue and cells) and the availability of trained medical professionals and clinical services.  WHO reports that of the 70,000 organs transplanted annually, 50,000 are kidneys; more than one third of kidney transplantations [15,000] are carried out in low or medium-income countries. The Transplantation Society reports that many, if not most, are transplants that involve living donors.

The organization Organs Watch estimates that 'thousands of illegal transplants occur every year bought by patients from the Persian Gulf states, Japan, Italy, Israel, the U.S. and Canada supplied by "donor" nations, including India, Pakistan, Turkey, Peru, Mexico, Romania and South Africa'. Another expert, David Rothman, states illegal organs sales account for at least several thousand transplants per year.

According to Dr. Abdallah S. Daar of the University of Toronto and a member of The Transplantation Society's ethics committee, even in Western countries, "no one seems to know the extent of indirect and unpublicized forms of compensation, which undoubtedly also take place within family donations." In other countries, such as the Philippines, some form of payment may be culturally appropriate, he added. "Payment to living donors continues to be a significant part of the transplant experience on the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and elsewhere."  A study in Egypt (Budiani 2005) demonstrates this as doctors reported that at least 90 per cent of all renal transplants involved commercial living donors.

Although not all of these commercial living donors may be considered “trafficked,” the vast majority of them likely resorted to sell an organ after being recruited by a  middle-person/broker, under conditions of deception and/or inadequate or mis-information, and transported to testing and transplant centers.