ORGANTRADE: Walls of Secrecy and Silence in the Human Organ Trade: Facilitating, Concealing and Laundering Illegal Transplants

Project summary

The organ trade is a relatively new but neglected crime that is proliferating globally. The trade is prohibited universally, yet, the growing gap between organ supply and demand has led to an ‘illegal’ organ market that converges with altruistic organ procurement systems. In this market, growing numbers of desperate patients from the global north travel to the global south to buy organs, often returning with severe medical complications. Similarly, the growing global economic divide and the rise in conflicts and natural disasters are subjecting increasing numbers of vulnerable organ sellers to physical, psychological and financial exploitation on the organ market. Preliminary scholarly work increasingly suggests that this trade is embedded within medical/legal institutions. There is however a critical lack of research and knowledge on how the medical sector, such as hospitals and clinics, and other legal businesses facilitate, conceal and launder illegal transplants. This proposed research aims to understand how, where and why medical/legal businesses facilitate, conceal and launder illegal transplants and assesses the implications for anti-organ trade responses. This project addresses these knowledge gaps through an innovative research program that combines online research, fieldwork and research of the most recently prosecuted cases across the global north and south. It is guided by a unique conceptual framework that combines notions from criminology, transplant medicine and medical ethics. By doing so, this project generates a potentially ground-breaking line of research that radically departs from popular portrayals of the trade as an ‘external’ organized crime and that advances our understanding of the trade as a socio-medical problem that is nested within medical/legal institutions. Insights will be crucial for scientists, policymakers, transplant societies and law enforcement to develop inventive solutions to prevent and disrupt illegal organ transplants.