Poor sell kidneys in Philippines slum

The same practice is common among the poor in other countries such as India. Of course the original sellers do not get rich but the those who resell it and install it in rich foreigners do. This is from the AFP via Google.

In Philippines slum desperately poor sell kidneys for cash
9 hours ago

MANILA (AFP) — The men living in the tough Baseco dockside shantytown on Manila Bay carry one of two badges to prove they belong -- tattoos for the gang members and surgical scars for the kidney sellers.

Built on muck dredged from the bay on the orders of former first lady Imelda Marcos for a visit by Britain's Queen Elizabeth, who never came, the 52-hectare (128-acre) open garbage dump is a grim reminder of the desperate poverty of the Philippines.

Few escape from the ranks of the largely unskilled and poorly educated settlers who arrive by ferry from other islands to hire themselves out as stevedores and porters.

When things get bad the men sell their blood.

And when all seems lost many resort to selling an organ.

"I was paid 160,000 pesos (3,848 dollars)," said Joey Rosco, 38. A curved, 13-inch scar running along his left side from below his ribcage to his hip is the only evidence of the 1991 surgery.

"The money is long gone now, and I am still poor," the father of five with a tattoo of a woman's face on his right bicep tells AFP outside his cramped hut of plywood, bamboo and tin sheets.

But he could consider himself lucky since he appears reasonably healthy.

He says a neighbour and fellow donor died from complications seven years after undergoing the same procedure, while a third donor accidentally killed his pregnant wife after using the money he earned from selling his kidney to buy a handgun.

The Philippines is one of the world's "hot spots" for human organ trafficking, said the Philippine Society of Nephrology, whose members are renal specialists.

"Between 2002 and 2005, when a 10 percent cap for transplants to foreigners was supposed to have been enforced, more than 400 kidney transplants from local donors to foreign recipients were performed," said society president Lyn Gomez.

She added, however, that "incomplete reporting from some hospitals" meant that the actual number of operations was likely to be much higher.

A total of 436 kidney transplants from unrelated, living donors were performed in 2006 in 24 Philippine hospitals, according to the government's Renal Disease Control Programme.

In the same period there were 36 transplants from deceased donors.

Baseco is the best-known living donor community, with local officials estimating that some 3,000 of the slum's 50,000 residents have sold a kidney.

"I never met anyone who got rich selling a kidney" --

Filipino Roman Catholic bishops in January denounced as "morally unacceptable" the organ trade which they said exploited the poor.

"The kidney trade has been here since the 1970s," said Baseco village chief Kristo Hispano.

"They say they resorted to it because they couldn't find a job or needed money to put up a business. But I have yet to meet a person who got rich using his kidney as capital."

Before he sold his kidney in 1991, Rosco said he had been regularly selling his blood for 35 pesos (84 US cents) a litre at Manila's commercial blood banks