Cambodia-Thai kidney trafficking sparks fears of new organ market

[webfact]

Cambodia-Thai kidney trafficking sparks fears of new organ market
Phnom Penh, Cambodia | AFP |

The seven-inch scar runs diagonally across the left flank of his skinny torso, a glaring reminder of an operation he hoped would save his family from debt but instead plunged him into shame.

Chhay, 18, sold his kidney for $3,000 in an illicit deal that saw him whisked from a rickety one-room house on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to a gleaming hospital in the medical tourism hub of neighbouring Thailand.

His shadowy journey, which went unnoticed by authorities two years ago, has instigated Cambodia's first-ever cases of organ trafficking and the arrests of two alleged brokers.

It has also raised fears that other victims hide beneath the radar.

At the corrugated iron shack he shares with nine relatives, Chhay says a neighbour persuaded him and a pair of brothers -- all from the marginalised Cham Muslim minority -- to sell their kidneys to rich Cambodians on dialysis.

"She said you are poor, you don't have money, if you sell your kidney you will be able to pay off your debts," the teenager told AFP, requesting his real name be withheld.

Identical stories have long been common in the slums of India and Nepal, better-known hotspots for traffickers. Up to 10,000, or 10 percent, of the organs transplanted globally each year are trafficked, according to the latest World Health Organization estimate.

But on discovering the broker earned $10,000 for each kidney they sacrificed, the donors filed complaints, alerting police in June to a potential new organ trade route.

"Kidney trafficking is not like other crimes If the victims don't speak up, we will never know," said Phnom Penh's deputy police chief Prum Sonthor.

In July his force charged Yem Azisah, 29 -- believed to be a cousin of the sibling donors -- and her step-father, known as Phalla, 40, with human trafficking.

The pair are being detained and await trial.

- First case -

Trafficking is a widespread problem in impoverished Cambodia and police routinely investigate cases linked to the sex trade, forced marriage or slavery -- but this was the first related to organs.

“This is easy money that earns a lot of income, so we are worried," said Prum, adding there were at least two other Cambodian donors taken to Thailand who had not filed complaints.

The complicity of donors, whether compelled by poverty or coerced by unscrupulous brokers, makes it an under-reported crime which is difficult to expose.

In August media reports emerged about new alleged organ trafficking cases at a military hospital in Phnom Penh.

Prum, who investigated the case, said it was a training exercise between Chinese and Cambodian doctors, using voluntary Vietnamese donors and patients.

But he was unable to rule out whether money changed hands.

- 'I regret it' -

Chhay watches from the sidelines as boys his age play football, two years on from an operation that has left him feeling weak, ashamed and still in debt.

"I want to tell others not to have their kidney removed like me... I regret it. I cannot work hard any more, even walking I feel exhausted," he said. In July he started work at a garment factory.

Little research has been done on the impact of transplants on paid donors like Chhay but the WHO has reported an association with depression and perceived deterioration in health, highlighting the lack of follow-up care.

Chhay remembers few details of a transaction that still haunts him, claiming no knowledge of the Thai city where he was taken or the woman he sold his kidney to.

In Thailand health authorities are trying to shed more light on the murky trade, with several Bangkok hospitals under investigation.

Focus has fallen on the documents traffickers forge to prove donors and recipients are related -- a requirement in many countries where it is illegal to sell an organ.

"We've asked hospitals to be more careful" when checking documents, Thai medical council president Somsak Lolekha told AFP, adding his organisation was reviewing its transplant regulations.

- Tip of iceberg? -

Driving the demand for a black market in organs is the globally soaring number of sick patients waiting for transplants, especially kidneys.

In Thailand alone there were 4,321 people on the organ waiting list up until August with deceased donors' organs forming around half of the 581 kidneys transplanted last year, according to the Thai Red Cross Organ Donation Centre (ODC).

World over this increasing reliance on living donors has left desperate patients scouring for volunteers in their families, or, in some cases, recruiting underground.

Prompted by concerns over trafficking the ODC, which oversees organ donations, launched a pilot project in April making it compulsory for hospitals to provide them with details of living donors.

"Before they could come to Thailand without our knowledge... We are concerned about hospitals where they are not following rules, that's why we asked for a register of living donors," said ODC director Visist Dhitavat.

While regulations are being tightened experts fear the booming medical tourism industry in Thailand, reputed for high-quality but low-cost care, could give rise to more criminal networks cashing-in on the vulnerable.

"It could be the tip of the iceberg," said Jeremy Douglas, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, on the recent Cambodian arrests.

"There could be a lot of others (cases) that aren't just simply coming to trial."

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2014-10-27

[clockman]

Nothing so sure, Thai mantra is money!

[JOC]

Nothing so sure, Thai mantra is money!

Don't fall off your high horse!!

If you were seriously ill, and 300k baht could save your life, can you honestly tell me that you would not consider this option??

[zaphod reborn]

More shoddy journalism. No study has ever found a link between donative nephrectomy and a diminishment of health for the donor. I donated a kidney to my father over 15 years ago. It extended his life about 10 years. Other than a scar, I suffer no effects from the donation. It's a scar I'm quite proud of.

[Commerce]

New organ market? New?

Maybe the organ name investors changed names from Steinwong to Yamakim?

Been going on for decades, if not a century. No surprises here.

[Commerce]

Nothing so sure, Thai mantra is money!

Don't fall off your high horse!!

If you were seriously ill, and 300k baht could save your life, can you honestly tell me that you would not consider this option??

I'd never consider it - neither from an Asian donor, nor under Asian surgery.

What comes one's way is a result of one's own actions - simple as that.

If I faced kidney or liver or pancreatic failure, I'd make sure I went out in style, and not pay for an organ I knew not whence it came from, especially in LOS.

Karma bites....... I just hope it bites the greedy bastards involved in this scam.

[lee b]

what a sick sick world we all live in, don't know what else to say really.

[Commerce]

what a sick sick world we all live in, don't know what else to say really.

Yet, Lee, we don't all live in such nor engage with it. It is only a sick world if one engages with all the so called SH!T that doesn't really affect one's personal life. We still have choices, you know.

[wilcopops]

Yet another question mark about the ethics of the Thai medical industry.

[SOTIRIOS]

...chalk up another 'hub' for Thailand......

...and they insist there are no human rights issues here.......

...babies....kidneys.......what else......

[empireboy]

Nothing much surprises in LOS

[atyclb]

More shoddy journalism. No study has ever found a link between donative nephrectomy and a diminishment of health for the donor. I donated a kidney to my father over 15 years ago. It extended his life about 10 years. Other than a scar, I suffer no effects from the donation. It's a scar I'm quite proud of.

t

he story makes no claims about donative nephrectomy studies. It simply reports what the kid that sold his kidney complains of. owuld it be correct for the journalist to report the kid is lying?

maybe the kid had pre-existent bilateral renal dysfunction and the loss of 1/2 kidneys could not be compensated for by the remaining one?

[Scully]

In my home country there are cases of selfless people donating a kidney to people they don't know free of charge. In this story it's the distribution of profits that's rightly upset the donors.

[RustBucket]

Nothing so sure, Thai mantra is money!

Don't fall off your high horse!!

If you were seriously ill, and 300k baht could save your life, can you honestly tell me that you would not consider this option??

Disgraceful comment.

Just because he is against organ harvesting and exploitation of the poor and needy doesn't put him on his 'high horse'.

If you agree with this disgusting practice of exploitation just to save your own ass, and rant off at someone with moral decency, is actually putting YOU on the 'high horse' here.

You have to understand that not everyone is as unscrupulous and selfish as you. Some actually prefer to wait for a legal and more natural replacement.

If you ever need it done, I hope your body rejects the kidney. Because in my view, you don't sound like someone worth saving.

[Lupatria]

Congrats to the new hub status! I wonder how long it takes before a well known organisation comes up with the slogan: Thailand- It starts with a new kidney

[maidee]

dare i say

hub of ...

[razer]

Reading the headline I thought this was another HUB story ... reading the story trying to figure out the headline.

[ericjt]

Sloppy journalism. I know at least one person who has donated a kidney, and have read about several more. None of them report weakness after surgery. Sometimes people are born with only one kidney and only find out about it later in life. They don't even know about it until some kind of scan or procedure turns it up.

So if this teen feels "weak" after the operation, then either it wasn't done properly, he wasn't a good candidate, or else, it's in his mind.

Or maybe the "journalist" made it up to make the story more interesting?