Since the outbreak of the war, the illegal organ trade has been a huge business in Ukraine, and the removal of children's body parts is already permitted. A heart or a kidney can be bought for five thousand euros on the black market.
It is incomprehensible why many were shocked by Maria Zaharova's announcement about the illegal organ trade in Ukraine, since it is not a new problem. Before anyone classifies the words of the Moscow foreign affairs spokesman as Russian propaganda, let us quote the article of New Europe, one of the official websites of the European Union, on November 2, 2011. The article was published under the title: "Ukraine: the capital of illegal organ transplants".
According to it, “Ukraine's lack of medical infrastructure and non-existent legislation on vital organ transplants has allowed the illegal trade in human organs to flourish, with desperate people increasingly turning to the black market for solutions. The profitable trade ranges from the transportation of bones, kidneys, livers and intestines to the illegal extraction of stem cells from newborns" - thus, the EU news portal cannot be accused of being the least bit pro-Russian.
In every modern war, the organ trade is in its "heyday". This was also the case during the South Slavic wars. So we can't talk about anything new. In the illegal organ trade, the state becomes an accomplice if it adopts laws that provide ample opportunities for abuse, i.e. violations of the law, and does not act against them.
The situation of illegal organ trade had already escalated before the Russian attack on Ukraine, primarily because the Kyiv parliament voted in 2021 for Law 5831, which significantly facilitated the removal of various organs from the dead.
According to the official explanation, the law allows, for example, the use of modern communication tools to express the will of citizens in the field of transplantation. However, the reality behind the words is dramatic. As we have seen, the law mentions modern "communication" devices, which can, of course, also be telephones. In other words, the person authorizing the removal of the given organ does not have to appear on the spot and sign his consent to the operation.
But who called whom, when and what in wartime conditions, will probably never be revealed.
According to the information published on the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, based on Law No. 5831, the written consent of the living donor or his relative – in the case of minors, sick, very old or incapacitated people – is no longer required, or a signature certified by a notary public is no longer required for donation.
In practice, even the removal of children's organs is allowed.
The procedure for removing organs has also been significantly simplified in the case of deceased persons who did not consent to donation during their lifetime. Permission to extract biological or anatomical materials from the body of the deceased can simply be requested from the person undertaking the burial, for example from the chief physician of the hospital or the commander of a military unit.
After the outbreak of the war, the illegal organ trade boomed considerably. According to media reports, the organs of dead soldiers of the Ukrainian armed forces were available on the Darknet. There are many missing soldiers. The starting price for heart, liver and kidney is 5,000 euros. If you need the organ quickly, you can buy a heart for 25,000 euros and a kidney for 12,000 euros.
Criminals can exist at all because there is a huge demand for various human organs on the global black market. The European Union, in its great friendship with Ukraine, is deeply silent about the whole horror.
But we know since Agatha Christie: there is no perfect crime. A mistake has also been made in the matter of the organ trade in Ukraine, a small detail of the terrible activity has already come to light.
It sounds horrible, but there is a lot of interest in children's organs. The veil fell from terrible human tragedies. At the end of June this year, a man was detained on the Ukrainian side of the Slovak-Ukrainian border for trying to smuggle a ten-month-old boy into the EU. The captured man was looking for parents who were ready to sell their one- or two-year-old children. The captured man has already sold at least three children to organ traffickers. The authorities were notified by a mother from whom the man wanted to buy her child.
The deep poverty in Ukraine drives many parents to despair, especially single mothers. This tragic state of mind is exploited by human traffickers who "work" on behalf of organ dealers, who promise mothers that their child will be taken to a safe place, adopted by a wealthy family and raised with honor. And when the child is handed over, he pays the child's parents a hryvnia equivalent to approximately two million forints - this is considered a horribly large sum in Ukraine.
