In Justice with a Pinch of Salt, a medical expert faults the logic used to convict the Ekweremadus for human harvesting.
“Any man’s [injustice] diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. And therefore, never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” – John Donne.
Senator Ike Ekweremadu, former Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his wife, Beatrice, currently languish in a UK prison convicted of conspiracy to commit human trafficking for the purpose of harvesting an organ (kidney) for reward. Their story reads like a Greek Tragedy; the valiant, if ill-fated attempt by desperate parents to save a daughter from the clutches of a life-threatening medical malady (renal failure) ending up in long jail terms for both parents and deepened personal crises for that adult daughter, Sonia.
The prima facie presentation of the case, as prepared by British police and prosecutors, bristled with accusations of ignominy, the language heavy on rancour and reprimand, painting the portrait of a crime most foul: the alleged attempt to defraud, deceive and destroy a young man’s life. Disturbing descriptions, more apt of the activities of an underground crime ring than of the desperate, current-global-realities balanced efforts of beleaguered parents. To hear the judge reel off his long-winded assertions during their recent sentencing hearing in London was to get the impression that the Ekweremadus were caught up in an incident that is offensively rare to British sensibilities. Yet nothing can be further from the truth. And when you add to that the copious, deliberate use of extreme, loaded words by the Judge, Justice Jeremy Johnson, in the apparent pursuit of maximal vilification of the suspects (classic British tarring and feathering), beyond the just convictions of law, the matter begins to veer towards the extreme right of the fishiness barometer; to smack of a perfidious, heavily veiled highhandedness in legal license.
…it is those who pursue this trade for profit that the existing international laws and conventions seek to corral. But the law of course is made up of letters, then there is its spirit. And this is where the law can become, as the British are fond of saying, an ass – whenever justice brazenly invokes the strictures in the law, as delimited by its letter, to maximal prejudicial harm, in abject negation of the humane spirit of the law…
Tackling some of the immanent terms here should further illuminate this troubling perspective. Let us start with ‘Human Trafficking’, the crime the Ekweremadus are accused of conspiring to commit. Globally, standard definition of this term, including that of the World Health Organisation and United Nations is, “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery of commercial sexual exploitation, through force, fraud or deception with the aim of exploitation for (commercial) profit”. Related, albeit not employed directly in this case, are such other terms and definitions as: ‘Organ Trafficking’, defined as: “cases of commercial transplantation where there is profit or one that occurs outside of national medical systems.” ‘Transplant Tourism’, “the purchase of transplant organs abroad that includes the access to those organ while bypassing existing laws, rules or processes of any or all of the countries involved.” ‘Illegal Organ Trade’ (The Red Market), “the removal of organs for the purpose of commercial transactions.”
Obviously therefore, the varied laws and regulations attempting to corral the ‘pandemic’ of the global illegal organ and human trafficking trades are all underpinned by one essential principle: that of the exploitation of peoples for profit. This is a 1.5 billion dollar a year global racket, according to a Global Financial Integrity report. It is one in which millions of people are kidnapped and murdered annually and their organs harvested – mostly in the service of desperate recipients in the world’s richest countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
The statistics are as stacked and stark and as they must and should be embarrassing to these countries. In 2007 alone, 2,500 of the kidneys transplanted in the UK and Canada were illegally purchased abroad, typically by rich citizens. Fact: kidneys are the most sought-after organ in this booming illegal trade. The cost paid for each kidney by Britons and Canadians? Up to 160 USD each. These are long running, abysmal stats prompting the WHO in 1987 to declare the illegal organ trade as violating of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. it also firmly emphasised that the illegality of the trade is rooted in its commercialism. In order words, it is those who pursue this trade for profit that the existing international laws and conventions seek to corral. But the law of course is made up of letters, then there is its spirit. And this is where the law can become, as the British are fond of saying, an ass – whenever justice brazenly invokes the strictures in the law, as delimited by its letter, to maximal prejudicial harm, in abject negation of the humane spirit of the law.
Caught in the legal fishing-net set for the more nefarious and exploitative extremes of the organ trade field are cases like the Ekweremadus, who though were thoroughly proper in their approach to the process of accessing a living donor organ for transplantation from a healthy donor, within the narrow confines of the presiding laws, still risked running afoul of ultra-stringent organ trade laws. This moral and humanitarian dilemma is the basis of ongoing debates and discussions amongst stakeholders worldwide regarding potential modifications to existing rules, towards reducing the demerits and disadvantages of existing legal framework.
Right off the bat, the prosecutors’ portrayal of this case, when framed by its deeper, evidently deftly downgraded facts, hardly stands up to the scrutiny of the presiding definitions. Of course, the Ekweremadus are guilty of something. This is the ‘standard’ looping around the inherent inadequacies of existing regulations in this most inhumane of human crises – the desperate shortage of donor transplant organs – and they are therefore guilty, ultimately, of being caught on the wrong side of the ass of the law. It is the vituperative verbosity of the prosecutorial language here that then gives cause for pause.
Globally, the demand for organs, of kidneys especially, far outstrips legal supplies. In the USA alone, there are an estimated 100,000 people on the waiting list, with a median wait time of 148 days), fueling the illegal global network of criminal exploitation and profiteering seeking to meet this vast demand. Caught in the legal fishing-net set for the more nefarious and exploitative extremes of the organ trade field are cases like the Ekweremadus, who though were thoroughly proper in their approach to the process of accessing a living donor organ for transplantation from a healthy donor, within the narrow confines of the presiding laws, still risked running afoul of ultra-stringent organ trade laws. This moral and humanitarian dilemma is the basis of ongoing debates and discussions amongst stakeholders worldwide regarding potential modifications to existing rules, towards reducing the demerits and disadvantages of existing legal framework. So far Iran is the only country where organs can be freely bought and sold, with most observers hailing its government and NGO monitored system as a worthy blueprint for an all-comers’ emulation.
Author
