Social network analysis of illicit organ trading networks: The Medicus case

Organ trafficking has been receiving more attention in recent years as its association with transnational crime organizations became evident. Most of the academic studies available on this topic are qualitative case studies, descriptively analyzing the nature of the crime and the agents involved. These studies often highlight the unique nature of organ trafficking, which is the involvement of medical service providers in the network. There have been, however, no effort made to examine the connections between medical service providers and other agents in the network in a quantitative fashion. This study presents unique quantitative data extracted from the “Medicus case”, a well-documented court case involving kidney trafficking that surfaced in Pristina, Kosovo, in 2008. Social Network Analysis (SNA) was employed to quantitatively analyze the structure and characteristics of the kidney trafficking network. The results reveal that there was a significant variation in the level of involvement in kidney trafficking both across and within different types of agents. Notably, medical staff, facilities, and brokers played vital roles in the kidney trafficking network. Moreover, kidney sellers held a more prominent role than kidney buyers, with certain sellers playing particularly influential roles. In sum, this study demonstrates the promise of SNA as a tool for understanding kidney trafficking networks, and that further research is warranted to fully explore its potential in this field

A human rights approach to human trafficking for organ removal.” Medicine Health Care and Philosophy 2013; 16

Abstract Human trafficking for organ removal (HTOR) should not be reduced to a problem of supply and demand of organs for transplantation, a problem of organized crime and criminal justice, or a problem of voiceless, abandoned victims. Rather, HTOR is at once an egregious human rights abuse and a form of human trafficking. As such, it demands a human-rights based approach in analysis and response to this problem, placing the victim at the center of initiatives to combat this phenomenon. Such an approach requires us to consider how various measures impact or disregard victims/potential victims of HTOR and gives us tools to better advocate their interests, rights and freedoms

Trafficking in Persons for the Removal of Organs: A Human-Rights Approach

In a growing number of developing countries, destitute individuals are the major or at least a significant source of organs used for transplant procedures. In March 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that illicit kidney removals for transplantation account for 5% to 10% of the approximately 65,000 kidney transplants performed annually throughout the world. The WHO estimate is considered the most reliable, albeit conservative, as the number of kidney transplants in China (from..

New Cannibal Markets

Thanks to recent progress in biotechnology, surrogacy, transplantation of organs and tissues, blood products or stem-cell and gamete banks are now widely used throughout the world. These techniques improve the health and well-being of some human beings using products or functions that come from the body of others. Growth in demand and absence of an appropriate international legal framework have led to the development of a lucrative global trade in which victims are often people living in insecure conditions who have no other ways to survive than to rent or sell part of their body. This growing market, in which parts of the human body are bought and sold with little respect for the human person, displays a kind of dehumanization that looks like a new form of slavery. This book is the result of a collective and multidisciplinary reflection organized by a group of international researchers working in the field of medicine and social sciences. It helps better understand how the emergence of new health industries may contribute to the development of a global medical tourism. It opens new avenues for reflection on technologies that are based on appropriation of parts of the body of others for health purposes, a type of practice that can be metaphorically compared to cannibalism. Are these the fi rst steps towards a proletariat of men- and women-objects considered as a reservoir of products of human origin needed to improve the health or well-being of the better-off? The book raises the issue of the uncontrolled use of medical advances that can sometimes reach the anticipations of dystopian literature and science fiction