Trafficking in Organs Said to Rise in Egypt
By JOEL MILLMAN And MATT BRADLEY
CAIRO—Egypt’s year of political upheaval has left a shortfall in some law enforcement, and that has been a boon for criminal organizations that traffic in human organs, a human-rights group says.
On Monday, the Coalition for Organ-Failure Solutions, a nonprofit international health and human-rights organization, is to release a new study that shines a spotlight an underground trade that world health experts say thrives here and affects thousands of African refugees in the country.
The report, titled “Sudanese Victims of Organ Trafficking in Egypt,” includes video testimony of corroborating victims, as well as documentation of ultrasounds, and records from transplant centers where African refugees have been targeted by brokers. In addition to nearly 60 cases investigated by COFS, The Wall Street Journal also searched for refugee victims of organ traffickers.
“Abuses include removing kidneys either by inducing consent, coercion or outright theft,” concludes the Washington-based organization, which tracks the world’s illegal-transplant industry. COFS’s Cairo-based researchers added: “In some cases, sex trafficking was associated with incidents of organ removal. The victims include men, women, and children.”
The COFS researchers said they believe many other nations’ citizens also suffer as victims of illicit organ harvesting. COFS estimates that there are likely to be hundreds of Sudanese as well as numerous others from Jordan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iraq and Syria. COFS estimates the total number of victims of organ trafficking in Egypt to be in the thousands.
By focusing on African refugees in Cairo, COFS said it hopes to alert international bodies that because coercion, deception and fraud are involved, Egypt’s underground organ trade should be viewed as cases of human trafficking as defined by the United Nations.
“In light of COFS’s evidence-based, victim-centered findings and the allegations of abuses of Africans in the Sinai that include organ trafficking, we call upon the United Nations to immediately authorize investigations into these abuses or support a credible investigation conducted by Egypt,” said Dr. Debra A. Budiani-Saberi, COFS’s executive director and a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics.
COFS fieldworkers in Egypt said they identified 57 Sudanese refugees and asylum seekers who said they were victims of organ trafficking, each involving the removal of a kidney. Dr. Budiani-Saberi said only one described actual theft. The others were voluntary donors, she said, although she balks at calling them “willing,” since poverty, fear and their stateless status are all coercive factors.
Organ trafficking is illegal under Egyptian law. Following nearly a decade of debate, Egypt’s parliament in February 2010 passed a measure to regulate legal transplants, which many here hoped would end a thriving illegal donor trade that preyed mostly on the poor.
The new law allowed for organ transplants in life-threatening circumstances from donors deemed brain dead by a panel of three physicians. It also outlawed financial remuneration for organs and established a government-supervised waiting list for recipients. Curiously, the law forbids the transfer of organs between Egyptians and foreigners—presumably to prevent impoverished Egyptians from selling their organs to wealthy visitors from conservative Arab Gulf states, some of which still outlaw organ donation.
The law allows relatives to donate kidneys and other organs to family members. Foreigners in Egypt also are allowed to donate organs to family members and others of their nationality. Many here believe that wrinkle created a loophole for organ dealers, who find “donors” willing to pose as relatives of buyers who secretly arrange to pay for donated organs.
COFS’s report is based on detailed interviews with nearly five dozen victims from Darfur, Sudan, and South Sudan, many seeking refuge from combat and genocide in their homelands. As many as 250,000 African refugees may now reside in Egypt—statistics compiled by Egypt’s government as well as by nongovernmental organizations vary widely. The U.N. has officially registered an estimated 30,000 arrivals from Sudan as refugees in recent decades.
Thousands who lack such designation work illegally in Cairo, many living in squatter communities while trying to raise funds to emigrate to Europe or Israel. Among the videotaped testimonies COFS plans to release with Monday’s report is the tale of one Darfurian who was promised $9,000 to finance his passage to Israel in exchange for a kidney. The organ broker also worked as a smuggler, this man said.
“The broker told us there was one solution,” the victim said, “Sudanese can sell their kidneys and their problems are solved.”
The man confirmed he had received payment for his kidney after a three-day hospital stay, but later was robbed by smugglers when attempting to leave Egypt.
Africans willing to speak about their involvement in organ deals—either as buyers, sellers or brokers—aren’t rare here. A 37-year-old man named Yasir, who works as a driver for an African aid program here, told a Wall Street Journal reporter in October that he was attempting to arrange the purchase of a kidney for a Sudanese buyer. He said he expected his client to pay a “volunteer” 20,000 Egyptian pounds (about $3,300) for an organ, and another 120,000 to 150,000 pounds for the transplant procedure.
Iman, a 41-year-old refugee from South Sudan, told two Wall Street Journal reporters in November that her kidney was stolen while she underwent a Caesarian section in 2007 at a Cairo hospital. An “unrecognized” refugee, Iman wasn’t entitled to the medical treatment U.N.-registered Africans receive there. Her story couldn’t be independently confirmed.
“I didn’t have any money and I didn’t have a U.N. card to get a discount for surgery,” Iman said. “So I went to the public hospital.”
She said that six months later, concerned about her slow healing, she went to a free clinic with her husband, Saddiq. A CT scan revealed one of her kidneys was missing.
“When they told her, she fell down,” he said, recalling the physician’s revelation. The doctor, Saddiq recalled, “said ‘Take care of yourself; God will be with you to give you comfort.’ ”
As refugees, Iman and Saddiq stayed silent. Filing a lawsuit or reporting the crime to the police would only aggravate the financial and legal troubles both already faced as undocumented immigrants.
“Who could I file a complaint against, a whole hospital? I had no person I could blame,” she said.
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com and Matt Bradley atmatt.bradley@dowjones.com