Organ trafficking

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Organ trade in Germany means the profit-oriented handling of human organs in violation of the Transplantation Act (TPG).

The illegal organ and tissue trade is to be distinguished from the permissible organ removal and transfer with the consent of living or deceased donors ( § 3 , § 8 , § 9 TPG). The so-called corpse theft, however, does not serve medical purposes. Organ transplantation is no longer possible without proper conservation after the donor's death.

The international organ trade is assigned to the area of ​​transnational organized crime (TOK).

Human trafficking for the purpose of unlawful organ removal is acc. Section 232 Paragraph 1 No. 3 StGB. Conceptually, organ trafficking and human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal are not always clearly differentiated.

Demarcation

Transplant Act

When the Transplantation Act was passed in 1997, the diverse possibilities of transplant medicine to preserve life through organ transplantation were offset by a clear lack of suitable donor organs. Making the profit-oriented exploitation of existential emergencies of potential organ recipients as well as of donors a punishable offense was already provided for in the draft of a criminal law amendment act of 1995. Section 298 of the StGB-E made trading in skin, bone marrow, liver explants and kidneys a punishable offense.

Up to the present day there is a temptation to exploit the health emergency of critically ill people for economic reasons. Because the excess demand for organs, organ parts or tissues that cannot be regenerated continues.

The prohibition of the organ and tissue trade according to Sections 17 to 19 TPG belong to the matter of ancillary criminal law . Section 20 of the TPG contains minor violations of the procedural regulations of the TPG with fines.

Sections 18, 19 TPG criminalize organ removal and organ trafficking as well as particularly serious violations of the principles and procedural provisions contained in the TPG. Organ trafficking in the sense of the Transplantation Act means the illegal removal or transplantation of organs, tissues or cells. The focus is on bodily harm or even a homicidal offense and the commercialization of this process beyond what is permitted under medical professional law.

The organs mentioned in § 1a No. 1 TPG fall under the TPG, with the exception of the skin .

In contrast to dealing with narcotics (cf. § 3 BtMG ), organ trafficking is in no case permitted. Donors, dealers and recipients of an organ can be punished, especially the doctor who knows about the "sale" of the organ but does not act self-interested. Section 18 (4) of the TPG provides for the possibility of mitigating or waiving punishment in favor of donors and recipients of illegally traded organs.

Organ and tissue trade according to § 18 TPG is also punishable if the act is committed abroad and the perpetrator is German at the time of the act ( § 5 No. 17 StGB). There is no obligation of the statutory health insurance to pay for the purchase of the kidney from a donor living abroad

The EU Transplantation Directive is primarily aimed at the safety and quality of legally transplanted organs. It only makes an indirect contribution to combating organ trafficking through the establishment of competent authorities, the approval of transplant centers, the introduction of conditions for the provision of donor organs and systems for their traceability.

Prohibition of organ and tissue trade

Concept of trading

The law does not define the prohibition on trading in organs or tissues that are intended to be used for the therapeutic treatment of another (Section 17 (1) TPG). For the interpretation of the term, one can fall back on the extensive jurisprudence of the Reichsgericht and the Bundesgerichtshof , which the legislature has taken up in the Narcotics Act .

According to this, trading is to be understood as any self-serving activity aimed at the sale of goods, even if it is only a one-off or mediating activity, which in principle can also include barter and even gift transactions. Neither the donation of a sum of money nor the payment of the consideration to the trader is required. The self-interested behavior of the offender is characteristic of the term “trading”, which is to be interpreted widely in narcotics law, whereby self-interest can also consist of a purely immaterial better position.

Unreserved adoption of the broad concept of trading from narcotics law in the TPG is prohibited because the two areas of law have little contact with one another: there a poison that destroys life and here an organ that can save life. The legislature wanted to prohibit the profit-oriented handling of human organs and remove incentives for living donors to impair their health for the sake of economic benefits, for example to offer a living donation of their own accord. That is why trading activity is to be reduced teleologically and only recorded as a matter of fact if it carries the risk of exploitation of a participant - in the broadest sense.

Legal policy

Individual health economists advocate the legalization of organ trafficking in a state-controlled market in order to increase the number of transplants and reduce treatment costs, for example for dialysis patients.

criminal code

At the European level, the human trafficking definition was expanded to include human trafficking for the purpose of organ removal with the EU Human Trafficking Directive (see Art. 2, Paragraph 3 of the Human Trafficking Directive) and thus to the definition of the UN Additional Protocol and the Council of Europe Convention on Combating Human Trafficking of 2005 adjusted.

The German legislature reacted to this with the law to improve the fight against human trafficking, which came into force on October 15, 2016, and to amend the Federal Central Register Act and the Eighth Book of the Social Code of October 11, 2016 (MenHBVG). Section 232 of the Criminal Code was revised and expanded to include illegal organ removal.

The offense of trafficking in human beings as a criminal offense against personal freedom comprises a specific act, a specific means and the purpose of exploiting a person for organ removal. The focus is on the donor who has been degraded to an object and is used as a human "spare parts store" without consent or personal ties with the recipient (cf. § 8 Paragraph 1 Sentence 2 TPG). Be punished according to 232 StGB only the perpetrators, not the victims of human trafficking, not even the doctor who unlawfully removes an organ.

Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal does not include the removal of tissue or cells, as can already be seen from the formulation. While the organ trade according to §§ 18, 19 TPG can be punished with a maximum penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment , the maximum penalty for commercial or gang trafficking for the purpose of organ removal is up to 10 years imprisonment because of the higher level of injustice (§ 232 Paragraph 2 No. 3 StGB).

Transnational Organized Crime

In view of its global spread, organ trafficking is also penalized internationally. On May 13, 1991, the WHO passed a resolution containing 25 principles for organ transplantation in humans. In a resolution of September 14, 1993, the European Parliament advocated a ban on the for-profit trade in transplants throughout the European Community. In 1997 the Bioethics Convention of the Council of Europe was adopted and in 2002 an additional protocol was added on the transplantation of human organs and tissues.

Europe

In 2003 the Swiss National Councilor Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold presented her report to the Council of Europe . In it she describes the machinations of internationally organized criminal gangs who buy organs from the inhabitants of poor regions in order to sell them in the affluent West. Specifically, Vermot spoke to 14 Moldovans who had "donated" a kidney for 2500 to 3000 € (the average monthly income in Moldova is 120 to 232 € depending on the source). The organs were illegally explanted in Turkey and transported to unknown recipients. Donors are also being recruited in Ukraine , Russia , Romania and Georgia , according to the report .

After the end of the Kosovo war that killed KLA , according to Carla Del Ponte , former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague , Serbian civilians and prisoners to the organs from Albania to sell . A report by the Swiss Dick Marty , prepared in December 2010 on behalf of the Council of Europe , builds on these allegations and establishes a presumed connection between Hashim Thaçi, who has been Prime Minister of Kosovo since 2008, and the illegal organ trafficking in Kosovo , which occurred after the Serbian-Yugoslavian organ trade Security forces and the entry of UNMIK and NATO- led KFOR troops into Kosovo is said to have taken place in Kosovo. Despite knowing what was going on, the report says, the international organizations operating in Kosovo are said to have failed to hold the perpetrators accountable for political reasons.

In Vermot-Mangold's view, the problem can only be solved together if the “donor” and recipient countries work together. She particularly criticizes the efforts of some states ( Germany , Switzerland ) to relax their organ trade bans. She proposes that in future only blood relatives be admitted as living donors. At the same time, the willingness of the population for post-mortem organ donation is to be increased in order to better cover medical needs. In their opinion, the “donor countries” should fight the causes (poverty and corruption). Like human and drug trafficking, organ trafficking is to be combated through international police cooperation ( Interpol , Europol ). Any kind of involvement, even providing relevant contact addresses, should be punished throughout Europe.

People's Republic of China

After strong international criticism of the politics in the People's Republic of China , the State Council of the country introduced a new law in April 2007 that prohibits all forms of organ trafficking and makes it subject to high penalties. The current practice of using organs from executed prisoners was not called into question. Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu said, "When some criminals realize that they have harmed society and want to make amends by donating their organs after they die, it should be encouraged, not refused."

New findings indicate that in China continues to be a flourishing, heavy human right adverse secret organs of the state organs of killed for this purpose members of the banned religious Falun Gong taking place movement.

On June 22, 2016, the former Canadian State Secretary and Public Prosecutor David Kilgour PC, together with human rights lawyer David Matas and China analyst and investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann, published the jointly prepared investigation report "Bloody Harvest / The Slaughter - An Update" . The 680-page report is a forensic analysis of over 2300 Chinese documents and website information. According to the investigation report, between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants have taken place in 712 liver and kidney transplant centers across China between 2000 and 2016, so that to date approximately 1, 5 million organ transplants have been performed without China having a functioning organ donation system.

Egypt

Al-Arish is considered to be the center of the illegal organ trade on the Sinai. In the hospital morgue, the deceased were found whose bodies had been stitched shut in the middle or on the sides with large stitches. The kidneys, liver, heart, and lenses of the eyes had all been removed. Around a thousand victims have been anonymously buried in the city's Al-Sadaka mass grave in recent years . The victims are often refugees from Africa destined for Israel. They are kidnapped and tortured by Bedouins in order to extort ransom from their families . If the blackmail attempt is unsuccessful, they are killed and the organs that can be used are cut out. The orderer and recipient are doctors from Cairo . This practice became publicly known when a Cairo doctor had an accident in a car on Sinai with a cool box full of human organs.

In response to a small inquiry from the left-wing parliamentary group , the German government replied that there were indications that a Bedouin tribe abducted African refugees from 2010 to 2011 and removed organs from them for resale to Egyptian hospitals. Around 200 to 250 people are said to have fallen victim to this practice, and not a few died as a result of the interventions. According to estimates by Doctors for Human Rights (PHR) in Tel Aviv , between 5,000 and 7,000 African refugees have been in Bedouin torture chambers since 2007 . According to CNN , doctors and organ dealers operate on the Sinai Peninsula even with mobile clinics. Extensive documentation from the EU from September 2012 paints the picture of a systematic organ trafficking industry.

Other emerging and developing countries

Mainly from emerging countries and countries in the so-called “Third World” it is reported again and again that organs are bought for money or other forms of reward and that well-off sick people are transplanted. This should be done on a large scale. There are certain indications of such practices from India , Brazil , Africa and China . China is openly commercializing the organs of executed or deceased prisoners. In Brazil and South Africa , illegal organ pullers have already been convicted by courts. The All India Society for Voluntary Organ Donation believes that there alone have been more than 100,000 illegal kidney transplants in the past 25 years. The donors receive the equivalent of € 750 to € 1000. Most of the recipients are wealthy Indians or foreigners, e.g. B. from Saudi Arabia , the USA , Israel and Western Europe ; According to individual reports, they pay € 30,000 to € 250,000 for a kidney. The transplant doctor Michael Friedlaender reported on Israeli patients who had received kidneys in India, Eastern Europe and Iraq . Living donors were also flown into Tel Aviv at times ; only public protests ended this practice.

Organ trafficking and violent crime

According to unconfirmed reports, people, such as street children , have been murdered in order to have organs removed from them. This is z. B. reported from Mozambique . In Egypt, for example, the crime associated with organ trafficking is apparently expanding: In a report from May 2009 , the ARD reported on increasing and repeated kidnappings of children and adults, in which various organs are removed from the victims and then mostly the Find death because they are not receiving medical attention. Entire groups of children are said to have been kidnapped there, and they were found “cannibalized” days later. The local criminal authorities have so far been apparently powerless to face the phenomenon.

Documentaries

Web links

 Wikinews: Organ Trafficking  - In The News
Wiktionary: Organ trade  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Draft of a law on the donation, removal and transfer of organs (Transplantation Act - TPG) BT-Drs. 13/4355 of April 16, 1996, p. 15, p. 29 ff.
  2. ↑ BT-Drs. 13/587 of February 16, 1995
  3. ↑ Pamela Dörhöfer: Great shortage of donor organs FR , October 29, 2013
  4. ↑ Mustafa Temmuz Oğlakcıoğlu: On the current occasion: For criminal trading with organs according to §§ 17, 18 TPG HRRS 2012, p. 381 ff.
  5. ↑ cf. Federal Social Court, judgment of April 15, 1997 - B 1 KR 25/95 R
  6. ↑ Directive 2010/45 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on quality and safety standards for human organs intended for transplantation OJ. L 207/14 of 6 August 2010
  7. ↑ cf. RGSt 53, p. 310 ff., 313, 316; 51, p. 379 ff., 380; 52, p. 169 ff., 170
  8. ↑ BGHSt 6, p. 246 ff., 247; BGHSt 25, pp. 290 ff., 291; 28, pp. 308 ff., 309; 29, p. 239 ff., 240
  9. ^ Draft of a law on the donation, removal and transfer of organs (Transplantation Act - TPG) BT-Drs. 13/4355 of April 16, 1996, p. 29 f.
  10. ↑ BSG, judgment of 10 December 2003 - B 9 VS 1/01 R no. 21 mwN
  11. ↑ AG Homberg (Efze), judgment of November 2001 - Az NN A drug addict had offered his kidney for sale on the Internet for at least 100,000 DM.
  12. ↑ 19-year-old convicted. Kidney offered on eBay n-tv.de, November 22, 2001
  13. ↑ BSG, judgment of 10 December 2003 - B 9 VS 1/01 R no. 22/23
  14. ↑ Frederic Spohr: Organ trade needs a free market Handelsblatt , April 20, 2010
  15. ↑ Directive 2011/36 / EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 5, 2011 on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims, as well as replacing framework decision 2002/629 / JHA of the Council . In: Official Journal of the European Union . L 101/1, April 15, 2011.
  16. ↑ Additional protocol on preventing, combating and punishing human trafficking, in particular trafficking in women and children ( memento of the original from October 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. DGVN website , accessed on July 15, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dgvn.de
  17. ↑ Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, Warsaw, May 16, 2005. Council of Europe Treaty Series - No. 197 (German)
  18. ↑ BGBl. I 2016, p. 2226
  19. ↑ Sebastian Bürger: The new regulation of human trafficking. Implementation of Union law requirements and creation of a coherent overall concept? ZIS 2017, pp. 169–181
  20. ↑ Carolin Rama: New developments to combat human trafficking at the level of the European Union - Directive 2011/36 / EU of April 5, 2011 December 2013, p. 6/7)
  21. ↑ General Secretariat of the Council of Europe: Explanatory Report on the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine Translation from French into German, DIR / JUR (97) 5
  22. ^ Additional protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine with regard to the transplantation of human organs and tissues. Strasbourg January 24, 2002. Working translation into German, Collection of European Treaties - No. 186
  23. ↑ Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold: Trafficking in organs in Europe. Council of Europe, Doc. 9822, June 3, 2003 (PDF)
  24. ↑ Current economic situation ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.moldawien.de
  25. ↑ Average income worldwide
  26. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/12/warcrimes.kosovo
  27. ↑ The strong man of Kosovo under massive attack , Jean-Michel Berthoud, swissinfo.ch, December 15, 2010
  28. ^ Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo , Dick Marty, Switzerland, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, December 12, 2010
  29. ↑ - ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed June 2, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dickmarty.ch
  30. ^ Accusations in the Council of Europe: Kosovo Prime Minister Thaçi is said to be involved in organ mafia ( Memento from January 27, 2013 on WebCite ) . Spiegel online, December 15, 2010
  31. ↑ The terrible details from the report on the Kosovo war - «Swiss» mafia boss involved in organ trafficking! ( Memento from May 3, 2013 on WebCite ) , Blick (newspaper) , December 14, 2010, by Henry Habegger.
  32. ↑ Council of Europe: Parliamentary Assembly, Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo ( Memento from May 2, 2013 on WebCite ) (English). Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Doc. 12462, Jan. 7, 2011, by Dick Marty, p. 2
  33. ↑ David Kilgour and David Matas: Bloody Harvest - Investigation Report on Allegations of Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners in China (PDF; 560 kB) November 2007
  34. ↑ Peter Sturm: Too healthy to live? FAZ.NET, April 2, 2007. Last accessed on February 23, 2009.
  35. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung Beijing wants to control organ trafficking , April 8, 2007
  36. ↑ cannibalized organs by order , 3sat, February 18, 2016, accessed on May 25, 2016
  37. ↑ Introduction to the documentation (8 minutes) , Nano magazine on 3SAT, February 18, 2016, youtube, accessed on May 25, 2016
  38. ↑ 3sat interview with Professor Huige Li , February 18, 2016, accessed on May 25, 2016
  39. ↑ "Scobel - Organ Trade - The Value of Humans" - Round Table, 3sat, February 18, 2016, accessed on May 25, 2016
  40. ↑ Gabriel Samuels, China kills millions of innocent meditators for their organs, report finds , The Independent, June 29, 2016, accessed August 26, 2016
  41. ↑ Megan Palin, 'A bloody harvest': Thousands of people slaughtered for their organs, new report reveals , News.com, June 28, 2016, accessed September 7, 2016
  42. ↑ CNN WIRE, Report: China still harvesting organs from prisoners at a massive scale , FOX8, June 26, 2016, accessed September 9, 2016
  43. ^ In the realm of death at sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de, accessed on November 10, 2017
  44. ^ Organ trafficking on the Sinai - crime scene Egypt (Der Tagesspiegel on January 15, 2013) accessed on January 15, 2013
  45. ↑ Friedlaender MM: The right to sell or buy a kidney: are we failing our patients? The Lancet 2002; 359 (9310): 971-3
  46. ^ Organ dealer tracked down , taz.de, January 29, 2004, accessed on June 2, 2016
  47. ↑ Esther Saoub: Organ trafficking in Egypt: “You are the first one who is still alive” ( Memento of May 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 2, 2016