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The act of physically removing an organ from one person (the donor) and transplanting it into another (the recipient) whose organ has failed is known as organ harvesting, donation, or transplantation.
After former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and his wife, Beatrice, were detained by the UK Police on suspicion of allegedly trafficking children and harvesting their organs, the term "organ harvesting" shot to the top of social media trends on Thursday.
What kinds of tissues and organs can be transplanted?
According to research by The Nation, transplantable organs and tissues include:
- Liver
- Kidney
- Pancreas
- Heart
- Lung
- Intestine
- Corneas
- Middle ear
- Bone
- Bone marrow
- Heart valves
- Connective tissue
- Vascularized composite allografts (transplant of several structures that may include skin, uterus, bone, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, and connective tissue).
All ages are taken into consideration as possible donors. Based on their medical history and age, a person's potential as a donor is assessed when they pass away. Medical eligibility for donation is determined by the organisation that procures organs.
Organ trafficking and forced organ harvesting are related offences in the UK.
In the UK, it is against the law to traffic in organs and tissue. Organ donation is only permitted with a person's permission.
There are two sorts of donations: live donations and donations made after death.
The brutality and torment that forced organ harvesting victims endure over time has been documented in reports.
Without consent or under duress, organs are extracted for use in transplantation. They are sold illegally to a market of potential purchasers, many of whom may be paying for a trafficked organ without realising it and unconscious of their part in maintaining a system of coerced organ harvesting.
Because a patient or donor can survive with just one kidney, kidneys continue to be the most trafficked organ in the world. Each year, it is thought that 7,000 kidneys are illegally harvested and smuggled.
Organs are matched based on a number of factors, including blood type and organ size, depending on the type of organ required. The length of time someone has been on the waiting list, their health, and the distance between the donor and the potential recipient are also taken into consideration.
The majority of the 11,000 illegally harvested organs the World Health Organization acquired in 2010 were from war-torn nations.
One of Nigeria's Serious Organized Crimes is the illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs both within and outside of Nigeria (SOC).
An organised crime group is defined by the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) as a structured group of three or more people who have been working together for a period of time to commit one or more serious crimes or offences in order to gain, directly or indirectly, financial or other material benefits.
Even though organ transplantation is now a common practise, there are still many ethical questions surrounding it. The main topics of discussion include organ trade and other forms of illicit, coerced, or compensated transplantation.
United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has strict regulations on organ procurement in the US to stop unethical organ allocation.