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Chinese authorities reportedly harvest organs from prisoners.
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Some of the prisoners are alive and die during the process.
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A member of the UK Parliament tried and failed to tackle the problem.
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The black market for organs is a billion-dollar industry.
(NewsReady.com) – Organ harvesting has long been an issue in China. For years, the government harvested organs from executed prisoners. That practice officially stopped in 2015, but in 2020, a report indicated the communist country was still taking organs from people.
Two years after the independent tribunal report, the practice of organ harvesting persists, and governments are not doing enough to stop it.
Forced Organ Harvesting
In 2020, the China Tribunal in the UK found the People’s Republic of China had been harvesting organs from minority prisoners. According to the report, doctors cut open prisoners and took their hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, and other organs in order to profit from them. Websites in the country advertised heart transplants, indicating people would be murdered. Low wait times for organ transplants provided more evidence that the practice was taking place.
The 2020 report expanded on an interim judgment from 2018 that unanimously determined the Chinese government’s forced organ harvesting has been taking place for “a substantial period of time” and involved a lot of victims. Many of the victims were those who practiced Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that China has declared a cult. The Tribunal also believes Uyghur Muslims were victims of organ harvesting, but there wasn’t enough evidence to definitively prove it.
Ending Organ Harvesting
Lord Phil Hunt of the UK Parliament introduced an amendment that would penalize UK citizens who travel to China to undergo organ transplants. In a March 24 statement, Hunt said that although a majority of lawmakers supported the amendment, the UK government has not.
On March 23, a virtual roundtable of the UN Human Rights Council discussed the practice. Doctors, lawyers, a UK lawmaker, and others expressed the need to put an end to the horrifying practice.
A report from the Epoch Times points out that although many governments, including the US, have passed resolutions condemning the practice, there aren’t any laws in place to hold perpetrators accountable. Dr. Weldon Gilcrease, a doctor at the University of Utah, said he believes only about 5% to 10% of the medical community even knows about forced organ harvesting. Those who do know seem to hope the problem will go away on its own.
That isn’t happening. The only way to stop the practice will be for governments to become proactive. Laws must be passed to punish perpetrators and ban citizens from traveling to China to receive the organs in the first place.
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