Seven Kosovars are being tried for the odious crime of organ trafficking. The allegations vividly depict how the destitute are exploited at all levels of this odious form of oppression. From the New York Times story:
The suspects are accused of luring victims from Turkey and former Communist countries to Pristina to sell their kidneys with false promises of payments of up to €15,000, or nearly $20,000. The recipients, according to the indictment, paid between €80,000 and €100,000 for the organs…“The black market in the removal and illegal transplant of human organs to others for the sole purpose of profit is an exploitation of the human condition in its most basic form,” the prosecutor, Jonathan Ratel, said. “It is the cruel harvest of the human person.”
Indeed. And the ultimate culprits are the purchasers who know that destitute people are being terribly oppressed and their health potentially materially impacted (or worse)—and simply don’t care.
I think we need an international treaty criminalizing organ buying of this nature. Without the purchasers, there would be no traffickers, and doctors allegedly involved in the market. A physician in this case is accused of engaging in 2400 commercial transplants! (He’s apparently being protected by Turkey.) In my view, they belong in the dock just as much as the accused Kosovars and the doctor, should he ever be captured.
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