The Business of Organ Harvesting in Nigeria
Due to hypertension and renal failure, which afflict 20 million Nigerians and result in one in five of them needing urgent transplants, the underground market for kidneys in Nigeria is increasing. Humans can donate their other kidney to someone who needs it because they only require one kidney to survive.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and professional organisations like The Transplantation Society have both recently expressed a greater level of interest in organ donation. Their main goal is to create a thorough framework of moral and legal standards to outlaw unethical organ donation.
Since organ donation and harvesting can have serious negative effects on the donor, both physically and mentally, it should always be voluntary. However, for many patients with end-stage organ failure, transplantation is the best, and perhaps the only, option for treatment. So there is a shortage.
One of the worst scenarios for people requiring organ transplants exists in the flourishing illegal trade of body parts, where organ harvesting takes place through the trafficking or abduction of victims.
Kidnapping and abduction
The rate of kidnapping and abduction in Nigeria is quite high. According to Humangle, “Over 9,000 people were killed and over 4,600 were kidnapped last year. While the figures are lower compared to incidents in 2021, they still fit into a worrying pattern. As many as 9,076 lives were lost to the violent incidents that unsettled Nigeria last year, and 4,680 people were victims of abduction.”
Ritual killing
There are also ritual killings where abducted people are killed and their body parts are used for ‘rituals’. Unknown or known to those who take part in this for the promise of wealth or other reasons, they may be aiding in organ trafficking.