Organ traffickers target Nepal’s poorest

KAVRE: Seven years ago, Nepalese farmer Madhab Parajuli faced an agonising choice: lose his small plot of farmland to mounting debts, or sell one of his kidneys to an organ trafficker.


In desperation, Parajuli accepted the trafficker’s offer of 100,000 rupees (1,400 dollars) and travelled to India to have the organ removed – a decision he now bitterly regrets.

“I didn’t get paid until we got back to Nepal, and then only around a third of what I’d been promised,” the 36-year-old told AFP in his home village of Jyamdi, around 30 miles (50 kilometres) east of the capital Kathmandu.

Wealthy Nepalese people suffering kidney diseases travel to India for the transplant operation, said Rishi Kumar Kafle, a Kathmandu doctor specialising in nephrology who is executive director of the National Kidney Center.

“In Nepal only the patient’s blood relatives and spouse are eligible for kidney donation. Therefore, those looking for a donor outside this travel to India for transplant,” he told AFP.

He said the paucity of healthcare in Nepal means kidney disease often goes undetected until it is too late, leaving the victim with a choice between expensive dialysis treatment or an illegal transplant.