By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BEIJING, China – Four men in China were charged with the criminal offense of paying living people for their organs with the intent to resell them to citizens in need of organ transplants. For the first time, a Chinese trial is scheduled to take place in April to hear the suspects on the laws governing organ transplants.
The four charged awaiting trial are believed to be part of a criminal ring that sells organs on the black market. The group is led by a former organ donor surnamed Liu. The named suspects suspects allegedly organized four liver and kidney donations. China Daily reported that their new business foundered, however, when the suspects were taken to court in December by a “donor” claiming back pay, according to the Haidian District Procuratorate in Beijing, which is handling the case.
If the four men are found guilty, they would be sentenced to at least five years in prison according to current laws regulating organ transplants. Present regulations on human organ transplants ban organ trade. This was set forth by law in May 2007, and restricted living organ donations to spouses, blood relatives or people sharing family bonds through mutual support.
Despite these legal limitations to organ donations, there has been a recent increase in the illegal businesses of organ trade has become a rampant enterprise. Over the last few years, the number of illicit sales of organs in China has skyrocketed. This is especially true with the rise in living organ transplants, which are transplants which use organs that are donated by living individuals, predominantly by those in dire need of money immediately. Li Ning, president of Beijing Youan Hospital and a liver transplant surgeon, added, “Driven by a huge demand for the life-saving procedure, the lack of a proper and sustainable organ donation system and poor law enforcement, the black market became huge.”
According to China Daily, about a third of 10,000 organ transplants in China involved living donors last year – a figure almost six times the number in 2008. Vice health minister Huang Jiefu, who is also a leading liver transplant expert, stated, “A considerable number of them were done with fake identities from hired donors.” Jiefu also expressed the concern that, “Without intervention, China will become the biggest black market for living human organs, which will seriously affect the country’s reputation and threaten patients’ health.”
For more information, please see:
New York Times – China: 4 Face Trial on Organ Trafficking Charges – 22 March 2010
China Daily – Four face a minimum of five years in jail if convicted – 22 March 2010
People’s Daily – Organ trafficking ring to go on trial – 22 March 2010
