Written Contribution to the Constructive Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons
KAEOT (Korea Association for Ethical Organ Transplants) is committed to raising awareness of the dangers of Forced Organ Harvesting, which refers to removing organs from live human beings forcibly. Since 2012, we have conducted a range of programs to prevent potential Korean recipients from being involved in illegal organ transplant tourism.
Transplant Tourism The black market for organ trafficking in Korea largely relies on the supply from overseas, in other words, transplant tourism. It has boomed since early 2000 and is being committed more secretly now, like drug trafficking.
Criminal Cases on Organ Trafficking and proposal #1 In the Korea Judiciary Database, 70 criminal case judgments with guilty sentences are found from 2000 to 2019. Most of them are ‘broker’ cases. If you look at the number of crimes committed, the overseas transplant crimes are much more numerous than the domestic ones. In most of the overseas cases, one defendant was convicted of multiple crimes. In the largest case, one broker was found to have committed 80 crimes within 5 years, and the total payment for the organs was over 4 million dollars.
Most of the cases were prosecuted several years after the crime, sometimes even 14 years after the crime. Then what’s the typical feature of the Transplant Tourism cases?
First, according to our analysis, the organ ‘donor’ was not identified, while in the domestic cases, the donor or seller was identified. Usually, in the judgments, the ‘donor’ was described as “a prisoner on death row”. Sometimes the recipients were notified about the fact from the broker.
As introduced well in the background paper prepared by the Working Group, victims are economically and socially vulnerable people. Here, based on our data, I’d like to propose incorporating one more specific category of victims into the review mechanism: prisoners or detained persons. Depending on different victim groups, approach to prevent and combat these crimes can differ. In some countries, these victims can be detained solely because they belong to minor ethnic, religious or political groups.
The second characteristic of the transplant tourism found in the criminal cases was the short waiting period. Without exception, the transplant surgery was performed within 3 months after the agreement with the roker.
From these unusual patterns and the scale of the crimes, we concluded that the desperate Korean patients are exposed to a commercialized overseas transplant tourism which may rely on the crimes of human trafficking for the removal of organs, which is very dangerous.
Consequences of Operations What would be the consequences of operations for the victims who were under detention? Probably, those who were destined to die met the death, and the survivors received poor or no care afterward.
Recently the media reported a story of a survivor from the crime. He was a prisoner of conscience who tried to keep his beliefs. In prison he was sent to a hospital for the removal of his organs twice. Each time, his family heard from the prison that he was undergoing medical surgeries due to his severe illness or injury and he had an 80% chance of dying. He escaped the hospital and later the country. In fear of threats, he remained silent for several years.
Increasing Awareness of the Dangers To raise public awareness of the danger of these crimes, we’ve conducted various activities.
Usually, cultural content such as documentary films and poster exhibitions were very effective in drawing attention from the public. We’ve also regularly sent out press releases on relevant news and information, which led to the production of an investigative documentary film by one of the biggest media outlets in Korea.
We’ve also focused on activities for medical and legal professionals. We hold regular seminars with the Korea Transplant Society and the Korea Organ Donation Agency. We organize documentary screenings at medical schools and bar associations. Additionally, we exchange information and experiences with NGOs in other countries. Organizing joint symposiums, drafting and signing a declaration, and implementing common action plans among like-minded NGOs have created a synergistic effect.
After several trials and errors over 8 years, we achieved a small success in our legislative campaign. In 2020, lawmakers added an article to the Organ Transplant Act, imposing an obligation on patients to report overseas transplants.
Challenges and proposal #2 Of course, we have challenges to overcome. To effectively detect, monitor and combat illegal transplants, the active engagement of medical professionals is crucial.
However, when lawmakers suggested an amendment bill to impose the obligation on doctors to report any suspicious transplants, we faced strong objections from the medical community.
Korea Transplant Society’s official opinion on this bill was that “there will rise a risk that doctors commit a Harboring Criminal crime, if doctors do not report the patients to the police after detecting the illegality of the organ transplant.” Additionally, the Ministry of Health and Welfare expressed disagreement, citing “when physicians detect the illegality of the organ transplant, doctor’s obligation to report and obligation to keep secret conflict with each other.
This is too much pressure to doctors, while patients might avoid going to hospital resulting in deterioration of health.”
Theoretically and in principle, doctors have obligations to report, but in reality, the doctors who provide post-treatment care for organ recipients may feel 'guilty' about reporting their patients for illegal overseas transplants.
To ensure their active participation, we need to carefully address their emotional dilemma based on medical ethics. Otherwise, they are very likely to remain silent bystanders.
Moreover, the black market of transplant tourism seems to be expanding and evolving into a more undetectable realm. We need a more systemic and collaborative approach to detect and combat these crimes.
So we need ‘practical and effective action plans’ to draw active engagement from medical professionals and gather as much available information as possible.
Song Kim, Legal Adviser of KAEOT email: kaeot@naver.com website: www.kaeot.org
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Written Contribution to the Constructive Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons
KAEOT (Korea Association for Ethical Organ Transplants) is committed to raising awareness of the dangers of Forced Organ Harvesting, which refers to removing organs from live human beings forcibly. Since 2012, we have conducted a range of programs to prevent potential Korean recipients from being involved in illegal organ transplant tourism.
Transplant Tourism
The black market for organ trafficking in Korea largely relies on the supply from overseas, in other words, transplant tourism. It has boomed since early 2000 and is being committed more secretly now, like drug trafficking.
Criminal Cases on Organ Trafficking and proposal #1
In the Korea Judiciary Database, 70 criminal case judgments with guilty sentences are found from 2000 to 2019. Most of them are ‘broker’ cases. If you look at the number of crimes committed, the overseas transplant crimes are much more numerous than the domestic ones. In most of the overseas cases, one defendant was convicted of multiple crimes. In the largest case, one broker was found to have committed 80 crimes within 5 years, and the total payment for the organs was over 4 million dollars.
Most of the cases were prosecuted several years after the crime, sometimes even 14 years after the crime.
Then what’s the typical feature of the Transplant Tourism cases?
First, according to our analysis, the organ ‘donor’ was not identified, while in the domestic cases, the donor or seller was identified. Usually, in the judgments, the ‘donor’ was described as “a prisoner on death row”. Sometimes the recipients were notified about the fact from the broker.
As introduced well in the background paper prepared by the Working Group, victims are
economically and socially vulnerable people. Here, based on our data, I’d like to propose
incorporating one more specific category of victims into the review mechanism: prisoners or detained persons. Depending on different victim groups, approach to prevent and combat these crimes can differ. In some countries, these victims can be detained solely because they belong to minor ethnic, religious or political groups.
The second characteristic of the transplant tourism found in the criminal cases was the short waiting period. Without exception, the transplant surgery was performed within 3 months after the agreement with the roker.
From these unusual patterns and the scale of the crimes, we concluded that the desperate Korean patients are exposed to a commercialized overseas transplant tourism which may rely on the crimes of human trafficking for the removal of organs, which is very dangerous.
Consequences of Operations
What would be the consequences of operations for the victims who were under detention?
Probably, those who were destined to die met the death, and the survivors received poor or no care afterward.
Recently the media reported a story of a survivor from the crime. He was a prisoner of conscience who tried to keep his beliefs. In prison he was sent to a hospital for the removal of his organs twice. Each time, his family heard from the prison that he was undergoing medical surgeries due to his severe illness or injury and he had an 80% chance of dying. He escaped the hospital and later the country. In fear of threats, he remained silent for several years.
Increasing Awareness of the Dangers
To raise public awareness of the danger of these crimes, we’ve conducted various activities.
Usually, cultural content such as documentary films and poster exhibitions were very effective in drawing attention from the public. We’ve also regularly sent out press releases on relevant news and information, which led to the production of an investigative documentary film by one of the biggest media outlets in Korea.
We’ve also focused on activities for medical and legal professionals. We hold regular seminars with the Korea Transplant Society and the Korea Organ Donation Agency. We organize documentary screenings at medical schools and bar associations. Additionally, we exchange information and experiences with NGOs in other countries. Organizing joint symposiums, drafting and signing a declaration, and implementing common action plans among like-minded NGOs have created a synergistic effect.
After several trials and errors over 8 years, we achieved a small success in our legislative campaign. In 2020, lawmakers added an article to the Organ Transplant Act, imposing an obligation on patients to report overseas transplants.
Challenges and proposal #2
Of course, we have challenges to overcome. To effectively detect, monitor and combat illegal transplants, the active engagement of medical professionals is crucial.
However, when lawmakers suggested an amendment bill to impose the obligation on doctors to report any suspicious transplants, we faced strong objections from the medical community.
Korea Transplant Society’s official opinion on this bill was that “there will rise a risk that doctors commit a Harboring Criminal crime, if doctors do not report the patients to the police after detecting the illegality of the organ transplant.” Additionally, the Ministry of Health and Welfare expressed disagreement, citing “when physicians detect the illegality of the organ transplant, doctor’s obligation to report and obligation to keep secret conflict with each other.
This is too much pressure to doctors, while patients might avoid going to hospital resulting in deterioration of health.”
Theoretically and in principle, doctors have obligations to report, but in reality, the doctors who provide post-treatment care for organ recipients may feel 'guilty' about reporting their patients for illegal overseas transplants.
To ensure their active participation, we need to carefully address their emotional dilemma based on medical ethics. Otherwise, they are very likely to remain silent bystanders.
Moreover, the black market of transplant tourism seems to be expanding and evolving into a more undetectable realm. We need a more systemic and collaborative approach to detect and combat these crimes.
So we need ‘practical and effective action plans’ to draw active engagement from medical professionals and gather as much available information as possible.
Song Kim, Legal Adviser of KAEOT
email: kaeot@naver.com
website: www.kaeot.org
UNTOC : Constructive Dialogue on Trafficking in Persons - 2024