Valeria+G's+2015+OpEd+Article

Imagine lying on a hospital bed helpless just living your final moments, knowing that the doctors can’t do a single thing to save you, due to the lack of a heart donor. Imagine how your parents and loved ones would feel with the mixed emotions of anger and sadness. All because you were too far down the waiting list for a transplant, or that a donor was just not found. Eighteen people each day die from lack of an organ transplant simply because there isn't enough organs. The demand for kidneys has rise due to health complications such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Over 100,000 people are on a waiting list for kidneys, while only 10,000 actually receive one. The process to receive an organ can take up to months. Even the organs from cadavers can take a while before they are transplanted into a patients. Because of the this the practice of organ trafficking and organ harvesting has increased worldwide. In places such as China, the Philippines, Nepal and many others.

What is disgusting about this practice is that it doesn't help, it only exploits. Exploiting the seller and buyer. Due to the lack of police force or laws in poor countries, organ trafficking is easy to get away with. Usually a seller will come from a poor background and are desperate for any amount of money that will help them survive. Most of the time a seller will get the commission of between $200-$10,000 per organ. While the trafficker is making $200,000 for that same organ. The ignorant are most targeted since the aren't aware of the danger that the are getting themselves into, which often leads health complications or death. For example, when it comes to removing kidneys, the common misconception that sellers are led to believe is that another kidney will grow in place of the one that was removed. Who can blame the uneducated they are merely trying to survive and the amount of money they are offered for their organs is far more than what they will see in in five years. As for the one in need of an organ, they can either wait up to months for an organ that may never come or run the risk of buying an organ that may be rejected by their body. They buyer is often led to believe that the organ that they are purchasing is healthy or exactly matches their own, when reality only the blood of the seller matches the buyers but not the tissue. Often some buyers are not aware of the reality of how brutal and inhumane organ trafficking can be, at times some don't even care where it came from they just want to save their own life.

Children are desired since they have organs that are perceived as better quality, than that of someone older. Everyday children are kidnapped and left for dead as their organs are stolen and sold throughout the black market. For example a six year old in china was kidnapped while playing outside, drugged, had his eyes gouged out and was left to die; while a woman who was a organ trafficker ran away with his corneas. A girl from Somalia was smuggled into the UK to have her organs harvested. A missing six year old boy by the name of Harunur rashid was found dead with his kidneys cut out. These kids are only three out of the thousands who are kidnapped and murdered each year for the sake of their organs. Now imagine if this was the only solution to save your life, by taking anothers. Would you do it?

What exactly is the solution to this inhumane problem? There is no correct solution that can completely get rid of organ trafficking but there are some that can improve it. Such as the legalization of organ sales, of course with the consent of the donor. When it comes to organ trafficking only one true person benefits from the process, which is the trafficker. Two parties desperate on both sides of the spectrum can benefit off one another if organs are sold legally. The donor would get a commission, while the patient gets an organ that is probably healthier than if it came from the black market. This solution raises questions like how exactly would it reduce organ trafficking? To start off people already sell their organs such as kidneys due to the shortage of income so why not have the hospital purchase theirs. If organ sales increase there would be no need for organ trafficking. By having the procedure done within that same hospital, there would be safer transplants. Even if legalizing the sale of organs is not a guaranteed solution, people should be encouraged to register as organs donors. Whats the purpose of having a dead body in the ground decaying, when the organs could have been used to save multiple lives.