In 2009 when reports first emerged that deceitful doctors and nurses at state-run Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala were medically putting out of action ‘half dead’ boda boda accidents’ victims of conscience to sell their organs, it seemed too horrible to be true.
However, a new case involving unsuspecting refugees is about to blow the lid on the illegal organ trade that is now allegedly worth a staggering billions of shillings a year. This despite the fact that trade of human organs, tissues or other body parts for the purpose of transplantation is illegal in Uganda.
The stories are grim and often impossible to confirm: illicit clinics, corrupt doctors and global networks dealing in human flesh.
The shocking details of the illegal organs trade were revealed after two cases were reported to the Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA), which in turn alerted the Police.
This was revealed at the regional conference on child trafficking and commercial sexual exportation of children at Serena Hotel, Entebbe last week.
So, how does one go about buying an illicit organ? It’s a bit more complicated than walking to a shady part of town and haggling with a guy carrying wads of a woman’s external organs of reproduction in his trench coat.
The cases involved two refugee girls from Burundi who testified to FIDA about being brought from the war-ravaged country and the fact that the traffickers targeted the organs of some of the people they were being trafficked with and are sold for commercial sex besides human labour.
“They gave us a picture of what happens inside,” Mercy Muduru, a senior advocacy officer at FIDA told New Vision before adding that the cases were reported in September 2016 and their efforts to do a follow-up suffered a setback after the girls aged 18 and 19 failed to return to the association.
As it would have been impossible and very dangerous to reveal their identities, FIDA says that the girls singled out Masaka and Masindi as some of the towns where the organ trade occurs and the parts mostly traded in are genitals and cornea.
For instance, the association’s investigations show that refugee girls are being sold on the market for sh200,000 for commercial sex alongside other unnatural things.
It’s believed that many Burundian and South Sudanese girls are now being sold as slaves, but due to the economic situation they become vulnerable and the end up keeping quiet.
The refugee girls can reportedly earn between sh300,000 to sh500,000 for selling their organs, specifically kidneys, to Ugandan middlemen who re-sell them to wealthy buyers for as much as shs10,000,000.
Most people are coerced into selling their organs through a combination of misinformation and poverty, says James Wandera, a scholar at Makerere University College of Health Sciences.
When confronted by FIDA’s evidence and continue to fight against this unimaginable horror, Joseph Obwana, the deputy director Criminal Investigations Department of Police, said they were aware of the vice and operating without the requisite policies.
David Apollo Kazungu, the commissioner for refugees at the Office of the Prime Minister said the issue of refugees being targeted to organs trade trade is new to him.
“It has not been brought to my attention,” Kazungu said.
As tension remains high in Burundi, the number of people who have sought shelter in Uganda has exceeded the 30,565mark, according to the UN Refugee Agency. Life in Uganda remains difficult for more than a million externally displaced South Sudanese, but a small number of refugees are finding ways of making their dislocated lives work.
Street kids, orphans targeted for internal organs
The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development a few years ago were investigating judicial officers, probation officers, orphanages and passport control officials who have been implicated in the trade of children’s organs, as well as selling children into sexual slavery and forced labour.
Mr Fred Onduri-Machulu, then Commissioner for Youth and Children Affairs said: “[vulnerable children are] lured into so-called orphanages and child-homes which later turn out to be holding centres before they are trafficked to countries like India, China and the United States of America, where their internal organs are harvested and sold while those who are rejected are subjected to child labour and sex slavery.”
A racket involving judicial officers, probation officers, orphanages and passport control officials were allegedly running the trade.
Even today, there are substantiations that organ traffickers take advantage of the hopelessness of the children to lure them into so-called orphanages and child-homes which later turn out to be the holding centres before they are trafficked to countries like India, China and the United States of America, where their internal organs are harvested and sold while those who are rejected are subjected to child labour and sex slavery.
The Gender ministry’s 2012 investigation findings were publicly shared.
A report released by the US State Department said Uganda had become an international hub for human trafficking and highlighted the increased trade of children in the east of the country for their body parts.
Weak organ trafficking laws
Unfortunately, there is no specific law in Uganda prohibiting the sale of human body organs, and especially governing human body parts transplant.
In a recent case where three people including Lt. Col John Kundu Wangusi, 56, attached to UPDF Air base and an Indian Prof. Vasudev Chaturvedi, 67, the vice president of Krishna Institute of Medical Science (KIMS) were sent to Luzira prison over alleged involvement in illicit trade of human organs.
Police investigations established that Vasudev contacted Ogwal to find someone willing to donate their kidney and would be flown to India. The donor, Sekyewa was allegedly promised sh200m after the procedure. Police investigations established that upon reaching India, Sekyewa is reported to have had second thoughts about the operation and asked to return home. However, Prof. Vasudev and the medical team allegedly drugged him and extracted one of his kidneys– the persons were charged with Aggravated trafficking of persons, in violation of section 4 (i) of the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act.
It’s a very worrying trend indeed, considering Uganda has become an active destination for human traffickers.
Uganda has faced significant scrutiny over the exploitation of children, most notably in relation to the use of child soldiers by President Museveni’s NRA rebel outfit and most recently the LRA, led by Joseph Kony.
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