Desperate Afghans Sell Kidneys To Feed Families
Desperate Afghans resort to selling their kidneys to feed families.
Taliban took over Afghanistan last year in August. After that the country has been plunged into a financial crisis. The country was already in a bad financial situation because of the continuous war, Taliban’s takeover worsened the situation. People are jobless, debt ridden and struggling to feed their children. The foreign help is also slow to return the country to its normal economic situation. You will be shocked to know what people are doing in order to sustain their livelihood. With no choices left, people in Afghanistan are selling their kidneys and other organs to save their families. One Afghan named Nooruddin is 32 years old. He quit his factory job when his salary was slashed to 3,000 Afghanis soon after the Taliban's return. He thought he would find something better. But, with hundreds of thousands unemployed across the country, nothing else was available.
He is very poor and finding it difficult to make ends meet. He stays in a small home with faded clothes hanging from a tree, and a plastic sheet being used as a window pane. In desperation, he sold a kidney as a short term solution. Nooruddin said, "I had to do it for the sake of my children. I didn't have any other option. However, I regret it now."I can no longer work. I'm in pain and I cannot lift anything heavy." His family now relies on their 12-year-old son for money, who polishes shoes for 70 cents a day. These people sell their kidney for as little as Rs 1,15,000. It is illegal to sell or buy organs in most developed nations, where donors are usually related to the recipient. In Afghanistan, there are no rules.
Top surgeons where the surgeries are conducted said that there is no law to control how the organs can be donated or sold, but written consent and video recording of the donor is necessary. The recipient pays both the hospital fees and the donor. Another Afghan, Azyta's family, had very little food. She felt she had no choice but to sell an organ, and openly met a broker who matched her with a recipient.
She said, "I sold my kidney for Rs 1,90,000. I had to do it. My husband isn't working, we have debts. People have become poorer. Many people are selling their kidneys out of desperation." Now her husband is planning on doing the same. On the outskirts of Herat city, in Afghanistan there is a village called Sayshanba Bazaar. The village is made up of hundreds of people displaced by years of conflict. This village is now being known as "one-kidney village" as dozens of residents have donated their kidneys. From one family, five brothers sold a kidney each in the last four years, thinking it would save them from poverty. "We are still in debt and as poor as we were before," said one of the brothers, showing off his scar.
