This is wrapped up in a lot of bureaucratic language. Essentially, impoverished people are being convinced to sell a kidney in illegal organ sales to foreign recipients. Horrific, but also different than what I thought of when I read "Human Trafficking" and assumed it was murder/wake up in a bathtub of ice.
The term "Human Trafficking" has a fairly broad scope and ranges from coercion to outright slavery. I tried to find a breakdown of the various types of trafficking, but couldn't find details. I've recently become somewhat suspicious of the term as the more I poke at it, the less clear it becomes.
I'm certainly not trying to be a pendant here but I feel that people having their organs forefully removed and then sold on a black market or being bought and sold as sex slaves is a much larger concern than prostitution. Just as an example.
Yes, I always read it as a new speak word for "slavery", so it was weird to see it applied to selling a kidney for 10k dollars, which was explicitly called out in the report as happening frequently in Egypt. Things get slippery here. Is selling blood plasma human trafficking? Is paid surrogacy human trafficking? Is work human trafficking?
My understanding is that the definitions are fuzzy and every country has their own methods for measurement and reporting back to Interpol. The prostitution case was not made up. Some countries count all prostitution cases (including voluntary).
>> ... I read "Human Trafficking" and assumed it was murder/wake up in a bathtub of ice.
> The techniques used for the recruitment and control of the victims are the same as those used for other types of human trafficking, such as promises of job opportunities abroad, as well as the use of threats and violence.
> Most often, victim-donors receive a smaller amount of the money than had been agreed with the recruiter or broker, and in some cases they may not get any of the promised payment. Many victim-donors have suffered post-operative complications and health issues.
I saw a documentary about this subject some places its so bad they have signs Warming the local populace of the implications, i cannot remember the doc i believe it was a vice Pieces.
The report paints Egypt as the country where the actual transplantations happen.
For example, reports suggest that organ trafficking occurs in most hospitals where legal transplants are conducted in Egypt, but it is more common in private than in public
centres
...
The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (2010) prohibits foreign patients to receive a transplant in Egypt, unless the donor and the recipient have been married for at least three years. Despite national regulations, Egypt has been reported as a destination for wealthy organ recipients from Saudi Arabia who travel to the country to allegedly buy an organ from impoverished Egyptians.
Within conspiracy circles there was a rumor that during the war in Yugoslavia in the 90s, a lot of the kids that went missing were snatched up for this sort of thing. Perfect cover too.
It’s pretty ridiculous that this happens in our day and age that money buys you longevity at the expense of other peoples suffering.
Oh ffs, not this again. It's not that they are more worthy, it's that they are on average more likely to be victims of those crimes. That's what "especially" means in this context.
Sibling comment already addressed this, but for the simple reason that when you are working to protect any asset or resource, including people, you invest where attackers are targeting those assets first.
Most frequently focusing on improving the safety and security of the most vulnerable has a knock-on effect of dragging the level of safety up to a simple baseline.
The frustrating thing about writing an answer like this is that it's necessary because based on your comment history you aren't asking that question in good faith, but others need to respond to it because leaving garbage comments like yours unaddressed is like leaving litter in the neighbourhood park. It's not my job or responsibility to take out the trash, but I like living in a clean neighbourhood.
Men are 20% of human trafficking. The idea that's not a massive part of the asset is garbage.
The reason men are left out is because the UN is a political tool used to promote careers over good policy. And from your two comments it works.
The reason you would target women and children, is men are generally labour which is generally less harmful to the individual. (Ignoring the complexity of boys trafficked as soldiers)
Of course for organ transplants that makes no sense. But that's back to the bureaucrats and the commentary on OP question. People are not good. They are in this to feel good about themselves. Hence white knight the women and children.
> Men are 20% of human trafficking. The idea that's not a massive part of the asset is garbage.
Yes, that's what I said. 20% of human trafficking is the minority. Not irrelevant, and I never said that. I said that when you want to prevent attacks you start with the asset you want to protect that is most frequently attacked.
> The reason men are left out is because the UN is a political tool used to promote careers over good policy. And from your two comments it works.
Huh? My comments have nothing to do with the UN, my comments are based on the notion that I have worked for more than 20 years in various information security roles, including government, finance, open source companies, cutting edge technology firms. Before that I was a soldier. I am very open about who I am. What expertise do you have besides shitposting on social media sites?
> The reason you would target women and children, is men are generally labour which is generally less harmful to the individual. (Ignoring the complexity of boys trafficked as soldiers)
The reason I would protect, not target women and children as a priority is because they make up the largest community of vulnerable people. As I said in my original comment, raising the standards of protection and care for vulnerable populations has the effect of raising the bar for every group of vulnerable people. Finally, trafficking in child soldiers is a different issue entirely, and is the reason that I make donations to organizations like https://dallaireinstitute.org/ What actual good work have you done in your life, by donation, or by actual work?
> Of course for organ transplants that makes no sense. But that's back to the bureaucrats and the commentary on OP question. People are not good. They are in this to feel good about themselves. Hence white knight the women and children.
No, you are not a good person, and you are projecting your awful perspectives and assumptions about people onto others actions. I have seen some shit people over my careers and generally they come in with attitudes like yours calling people liars and assuming that everyone who takes a positive position is virtue signalling or white knighting, or whatever language of the day is used to hide the fact that your cynical views of people are largely based on your own inadequacies.
> Why are some human lives more worthy of being protected than others ?
The “particularly” here is about the area where there was a particular identified status-quo problem; for various reasons women and children are more trafficked (part of this is that historically, in both internal and international armed conflict, killing men and enslaving women and children has been common, and this hasn't been eliminated.)
I'd want to hear from the sellers - did it change their life? Folks sell a portion of their life to lots of taskmasters. I'm on a floor right now at a 'workstation' like all the others spending 8 hours fighting bad tools and faulty hardware, wishing I was out of this maze and back at home.
Selling your time to do software development with shoddy tools is in no way comparable to feeling so desperate that you see your only option in life is to sell a body part.
What is interesting is that some of the "preaching" do gooders here on HN and elsewhere - won't lift a finger to alleviate the underlying issues that cause this type of decision.
In most of these articles about stopping something terrible - I'm always keeping my eye out for - what is the solution they are proposing to reduce the demand for X or Y.
In the current system - where the do gooders only try to stop things instead of help -> maybe there is a question. Is there a net positive to someone selling an organ, getting let's say 100K, and another person then having a much longer and higher quality life?
The dirty secret the do-gooders won't tell you. Even as they stop others from getting money, they work to rake it in. Seriously.
"Amateur" college football athletes (many minorities). The do-gooders say they can't earn any money - nothing for families or themselves, even though they may have a career ending injury playing in college.
Meanwhile, I'm sure the coaches, athletic directors and others are absolutely RAKING it in.
Same thing with transplants. A kidney transplant for which donor get's nothing (currently) is paying / billing out for $500K easily. I'd love to know what the transplant network CEO's are raking in.
So we have a system. Donors don't get paid (for the "higher good") - resulting in all kinds of shortages and delays. Meanwhile - the folks running this show and flying around in private jets are raking it in.
$1,000 per year for anyone who signs up for an organ donor registry? $100K to your estate if you are a heart / liver / etc donor after death? $100,000 for anyone who donates a kidney? How about bone marrow donations etc?
The dirty secret is some hospital chain is already raking in the big bucks on those heart transplants.
Anytime you see someone saying someone else should not be able to get paid for something - worth looking at who is free-riding on others kindness / generosity / health / poverty etc.
very valid point, outside of technological investment not much. we've come a long way in medicine but there's still a ton of research and regulations that goes along with that. i hope things change in a positive way for you. i know it must be difficult
