Recent arrest of five suspected international human organ traffickers has brought, once again, to the fore a crime that had hit the headlines of the country's press years ago. The Detective Branch (DB) team is reported to have also recovered two injections, one syringe, one dagger and one towel from their possessions. As reports say, one suspected agent of international human organ traffickers allegedly brought a man to Dhaka from Joypurhat assuring him that he would get a CNG-run auto-rickshaw in exchange for his kidney. The agent had been tricking poor people into selling their kidneys for about eight years, detectives claimed, adding that he confessed to mediating sale of four persons' kidneys in recent years. The transplants took place in private hospitals of Kolkata, India, but the patients who bought the kidneys were all Bangladeshis. Physicians in Bangladesh became seriously reluctant to conduct transplants after 2011 when stories of human organ trade in Joypurhat area appeared in the media.
That the law-enforcement agencies are vigilant on likely revival of trading on human organ is evident from the arrest of the five traffickers. In fact, Bangladesh had once been an organ market that had been in existence for more than a decade. It was operated by local and international patients, who bought organs within Bangladesh and then obtained the surgeries mostly in India, as well as in Thailand, Singapore etc. The sellers were the poor citizens, who eventually sold their body parts to get out of poverty.
Parliament had passed the Organ Transplant Act, which explicitly stated that anyone violating the law could be imprisoned for a minimum period of three years to a maximum of seven years, and/or penalised with a minimum fine of Tk 300,000. There were, however, loopholes in the law and that was why the present government was planning to enact a new one. Although its draft was ready in June, it has not yet been placed before the cabinet. The law 'Human Organ Transplant Act 2015', as the reports say, aims at bringing to book the culprits involved in illegal sale and purchase of human organs in the country. According to Section 16 of the draft law, it would be a punishable offence if anyone purchases or sells human organs in lieu of any benefits and advertises, or carries out any campaign in this regard. The draft law requires both private and public hospitals to take permission of the government for human organ transplant. If anyone gives any false information about relationship or encourages anyone to certify, it will be liable to punishment for a minimum two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Tk 5,00,000 or both.
Human organ trafficking is a gross violation of justice to the poor. But mere arrest of the organ traders will not help curb the crime. It is urgent for the government to create mass awareness against organ trafficking and establish a cadaveric organ donation programme. Furthermore, organ donation from family members should be encouraged, besides introducing a national registry to record information on recipients and donors. In this connection, setting up of a commission to verify the relationship between recipients and donors and to prosecute all criminals to ensure that justice prevails, merits attention. Laws without its proper enforcement cannot stop the highly unethical trading in human organs.
Curbing trade in human organs
FE Team | Published: September 04, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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