Organ theft is the forcible removal of a person's
organs
In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a f ...
to be used as
transplants and sold on the
black market. While some cases of organ theft are
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
s, others have been found to be true.
It is also a commonly used trope in science fiction.
The urban legend
Recorded rumors of the theft of one or both of the victims kidneys have existed since 1994.
According to American
folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand
Jan Harold Brunvand (born March 23, 1933) is a retired American folklorist, researcher, writer, public speaker, and professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah.
Brunvand is best known for popularizing the concept of the urban legend, ...
, it's possible that the story originated due to a news story wherein a Turkish man, Ahmet Koc, claimed to have had his kidney stolen at a hospital but had in fact sold his kidney and was unhappy at the amount of money he'd been paid.
There is certainly a
worldwide organ trafficking issue, but actual organ theft is highly unlikely. American skeptical investigator
Benjamin Radford
Benjamin Radford (born October 2, 1970) is an American writer, investigator, and skeptic. He has authored, coauthored or contributed to over twenty books and written over a thousand articles and columns on a wide variety of topics including urba ...
notes that organ transplantation is extremely complicated, requires specific matches coupled with fairly tight time frames, and highly specialized medical training.
As such, Radford wrote that common variations on the legend where either a lone traveler is drugged or otherwise subdued or where a child is kidnapped and harvested against their will are simply not possible scenarios for such theft to occur.
Credible occurrences
There are cases that are strongly suspected of being real occurrences. They generally occur in institutional settings with the systems and expertise available for the transplantation of the organ to occur.
China
According to reports, there are more
organ donations than there are official donors and it's suspected that
prisoners of conscience are making up the difference against their will.
The U.S. House of Representatives and the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
have passed resolutions condemning the practice.
The allegations are strongly supported by a 2017 report.
The report itself is an update to two separate works of investigative journalism:
:*''The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem'', written by
Ethan Gutmann
Ethan Gutmann is an American writer, researcher, author, and a senior research fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation whose work has investigated surveillance and organ harvesting in China.
Education
Gutmann earn ...
:*''Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs'', written by
David Matas
David Matas (born 29 August 1943) is the senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada who currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has maintained a private practice in refugee, immigration, and human rights law since 1979, and has published vario ...
and
David Kilgour
David William Kilgour (February 18, 1941 – April 5, 2022) was a Canadian human rights activist, author, lawyer, and politician. He was also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Kilgour graduated from the Universi ...
On June 17, 2019, the
China Tribunal, an independent tribunal looking into the accusations of forced organ harvesting in China, released their final report and judgement.
The tribunal in part determined that:
:::"The Tribunal’s members are certain – unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt – that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims."
As a result of the tribunal's report, and China previously admitting to harvesting organs (although they claimed to have ceased the practice in 2015)
several prominent journals are instituting stronger controls to ensure that papers produced on organ transplantation only use voluntarily-obtained organs.
India
The multi-billion
rupee Gurgaon kidney scandal came to light in January 2008 when police arrested several people for running a
kidney transplant
Kidney transplant or renal transplant is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage kidney disease (ESRD). Kidney transplant is typically classified as deceased-donor (formerly known as cadaveric) or living-donor transplantati ...
racket in
Gurgaon,
an industrial township near
New Delhi
New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Kidneys from most of the victims, who were poor people from the nearby
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
,
were transplanted into clients from the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
and
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
. The police raid was prompted by complaints by the locals from
Moradabad
Moradabad () is a city, commissionary and municipal corporation in Moradabad district of Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Moradabad is situated on the banks of the Ramganga river, at a distance of from the national capital, New Delhi and 344 ...
about illegal kidney sales.
The man accused of the scandal, Amit Kumar, was arrested in
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...
on 7 February 2008 and has denied any hand in criminal activity. According to the Gurgaon police, the scandal at a local clinic was going on for six to seven years. The donors were lured with offerings of about
Rs.
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...
30,000 for kidney removal. First, they were lured to the clinic on the pretext of job opportunities. They were instead asked for donating their kidneys for the fee and all those who resisted were drugged against their will and subsequently operated upon.
Kosovo
Organ theft in
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
has been widely reported.
[Chuck Sudetic, Carla Del Ponte, La caccia: Io e i criminali di guerra, Feltrinelli, Milano, (2008), ]
:* During and after the 1999 war, accusations were made of people being killed in order to remove their organs to sell them on the black market. Various sources estimated that the number of victims ranged from a "handful",
up to 50,
between 24 to 100
to over 300. The victims were believed to be of
Serbian nationality, killed by perpetrators with strong links to the
Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) in 1999. Claims were investigated first by the
ICTY, who found medical equipment and traces of blood in and around the house.
They were then investigated by the UN, who received witness reports from many former UÇK fighters who stated that several of the prisoners had their organs removed.
:* In 2010, a report by
Swiss prosecutor
Dick Marty
Dick Marty (born 7 January 1945) is a Swiss politician ( FDP.The Liberals) and former state prosecutor of the canton of Ticino. He is a former member of the Swiss Council of States (from 1995 to 2011) and of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Coun ...
to the
Council of Europe (CoE) uncovered "credible, convergent indications"
of an illegal trade in human organs going back over a decade,
including the deaths of a "handful" of Serb captives killed for this purpose.
On 25 January 2011, the report was endorsed by the CoE, which called for a full and serious investigation. Since the issuance of the report, however, senior sources in the
(EULEX) and many members of the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
have expressed serious doubts regarding the report and its foundations, believing Marty failed to provide "any evidence" concerning the allegations.
[Politician angers MEPs over Kosovo organ harvesting claim](_blank)
(''The Irish Times
''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'') A EULEX special investigation was launched in August 2011.
:*Responding to this allegation, the head of the war crimes unit of Eulex (the European Law and Justice Mission in Kosovo), Matti Raatikainen, claimed "The fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever in this case, no bodies. No witnesses. All the reports and media attention to this issue have not been helpful to us. In fact, they have not been helpful to anyone."
He described these allegations as a "distraction" that prevented the war crimes unit from finding the remains of close to 2,000 individuals of Serb, Albanian, and Roma ethnicity still missing in the conflict.
Organ prices
List of average organ prices on the black market.
In science fiction
Organ theft is a common trope in
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
, being popularized by the
Known Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of about a dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by Larry Niven. It has also become a shared universe in the spin-off ''Man-Kzin Wars'' anthologies. The Internet Spe ...
universe created by
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are '' Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, '' The Mote in God's E ...
, where it is called "organlegging", a portmanteau of "organ" and "bootlegging".
Due to organ transplantation becoming safe and universally effective, a huge potential black market in body parts was able to be exploited by murderous racketeers.
Literary critic
John Kenneth Muir
John Kenneth Muir (born December 3, 1969) is an American literary critic. As of 2022, he has written thirty reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular focus on the horror and science fiction genres.
Biography
Bo ...
cited the
Vidiians, from TV series ''
Star Trek: Voyager'', as an example of the prevalence of organ harvesting story arcs in science fiction, comparing them to similar ideas explored in earlier British television shows such as ''
UFO
An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...
'', ''
Space: 1999'', and in the episode ''
Powerplay'' in the third series of ''
Blake's 7
''Blake's 7'' (sometimes styled ''Blakes7'') is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Four 13-episode series were broadcast on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981. It was created by Terry Nation, who also wrote the first ...
''. He speculated that there may be a connection between these science fiction storylines and the spread of organ trafficking urban legends. Other academics have made similar observations that the Vidiians and other science fiction depictions of organ harvesting have the potential to adversely influence public knowledge and perceptions of scientific issues, including
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
and
organ donation
Organ donation is the process when a person allows an organ of their own to be removed and transplanted to another person, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive or dead with the assent of the next of kin.
Donation may be for re ...
.
Clarence Spiger and colleagues, in a study of student perceptions of organ donations, highlighted the Vidiians as an example of a problematic source of information about the topic on television, a medium which many participants had identified as a key source for their understanding. "We can only speculate", they wrote, "that students' responses could have been indirectly or subconsciously influenced through the viewing of such programming."
Emily Russell, in exploring the way embalming and other techniques are used to make death appear lifelike, notes that "the conceptual groundwork is laid for organ transfer as the 'gift of life'
nd thusorgan 'harvesting' then becomes not the dystopic vision of science fiction, but a celebrated and natural transfer of life from death."
See also
* ''
Coma'', 1977 novel by Robin Cook
* ''
Coma'', 1978 film, based on the aforementioned novel
* ''
Fleisch'', a 1979 German made-for-television film in which a newly married man is abducted by organ traffickers in the American Southwest
* ''
Death Warrant
An execution warrant (also called death warrant or black warrant) is a writ that authorizes the execution of a condemned person. An execution warrant is not to be confused with a " license to kill", which operates like an arrest warrant bu ...
'', 1990 film, where a murder mystery involves organ theft where healthy prison inmates are murdered for healthy organs
* ''
Charlie the Unicorn
''Charlie the Unicorn'' is a 2005 Flash animated comedy short film and viral video created by Jason Steele of independent film company FilmCow in Orlando, Florida. The short follows Charlie, a lethargic and pessimistic unicorn, who is taken by a ...
'', a 2005 short viral video
* ''
Turistas'', a 2006 American horror film, in which the main characters who are tourists are abducted in the Brazilian countryside for purposes of organ theft
* ''
Snakehead'', a 2007
Alex Rider
''Alex Rider'' is a series of spy novels written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The novels revolve around a teenage spy named Alex Rider and is primarily aimed towards young adults. The series currently comprises thirteen novels, as we ...
novel in which the title character is kidnapped and sent to a facility for organ theft in the South East Asian jungle
* ''
Pound of Flesh'', a 2015 film in which a former commando falls prey to organ thieves.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Organ theft
Organ transplantation
Science fiction themes
Urban legends