Organ Market pt2 - Is this underground trade wholly controlled by organised crime groups? Flashcards
What are the different roles within the organised crime groups of organ transplants? + reference.
Traffickers - People who deceive, persuade, or force the sellers to sell their organs.
Recruiters - People who identify potential sellers that are deemed to be suitable.
Medical Practitioners - Carry out the organ transplants.
Other roles within the organised organ crime groups include:
- Organ transporters, staff at the hospital that receive the organ, middlemen, contractors, people that store the organs, buyer (Columb 2017).
What are the 3 ways that organised crime groups can get someone to sell their organs? + reference.
- Traffickers persuade them to sell their organs by offering a high price (Seller is willing).
- Traffickers force or deceive people to sell their organs (seller has knowledge of transplant but gets deceived).
- Vulnerable people get treated for ailment and their organs are stolen without their knowledge (Person is exploited).
How does Columb (2017) challenge the idea that organ markets are solely run by Organised Crime Groups?
Columb (2017) suggests that Cairo’s organ markets are based on modern modes of collaboration, trading and communication across the illegal/legal divide.
Therefore the organ trade is better seen as an emerging sector of the informal economy rather than a trafficking offence (Columb 2017).
Who are the people within the organ trade as outlined by Columb (2017)?
Instead of Organised Crime Groups, Columb (2017) suggest that organ trade in Egypt is facilitated by networks of brokers and medical professionals who operate across formal and informal economies.
Who are “Organ Brokers”?
+ How often do they facilitate the organ market?
+ Who do they collaborate with?
Organ Brokers are not typically gangsters but instead are individuals adapting to a challenging economic environment by facilitating the organ trade on a temporary or part-time basis (Columb 2017).
- Brokers operate in informal street markets and collaborate with other actors in the informal economy such as: housing agents, street vendors, and even sex workers (Columb 2017).
- Brokers work with legal tissue-typing labs as they provide the link between brokers and the hospitals required for the transplants.
How is the organ market in Egypt colluded between medical professionals and organ brokers? + reference
Organ brokers receive the Sudanese migrants information and then forge the documents to conceal the illegal organ sale and present them as legitimate.
- If the seller decides to withdraw from the organ removal they will be threatened by the organ broker who can take their papers to authorities as organ selling is illegal. Therefore Sudanese migrants have to sell their organs or could face prison sentences.
Medical professionals collude as they know the transplant is illegal however they receive around $6,000 for each procedure.
(Columb 2017).
