Killing Children For Their Organs
Document Title: Killing Children For Their
Organs
Document Ref No: R9503011
First Published: Reflections - Philippine Daily Inquirer
Publication Date: 1st March 1995
Author's Name: Father Shay Cullen SSC
London : Hundreds of children go missing in the Philippines every year and
many of them are never found.
Some of these children run away from home because they are severely beaten
or abused. A few weeks ago in Olongapo, the alcoholic father of a 12 year
old boy in Gordon Heights was angry his son did not bring home rice so he
tied his arms around a tree, wrapped them in rags and set him alight.
The screams of the child alerted the neighbors but they could not stop it
in time. The father soon fled with the badly burnt boy.
Children who run away from situations like these will not want to be sent
home so they lie about their names and addresses. It is these children who
wander the streets homeless and abandoned who become prey to the pimps and
paedophiles.
In London I am lobbying for the right of children and learning more about
another crime against children. Believe it or not there are human vultures
out there kidnapping and killing children - for their body organs to sell
for transplants to the rich.
Yes this is the horrific trade that is taking the lives of thousands of
children around the world. Not much has been heard about it but the evidence
is mounting. There is a huge demand and a monied market in both developing
and Northern countries for body parts especially eyes, hearts and kidneys
of children.
A kidney or eyes can fetch $10,000, a heart $50,000 or more.
As a result the black market in children's organs for transplants is growing.
With prices like that criminals will commit any crime. Impoverished parents
are sometimes persuaded to sell their children's eyes or a kidney for as
little as $500.
Trafficking in children's organs is the new crime against humanity together
with selling children for sex.
In Bogota, Columbia a group of journalists covering a political rally were
shown a four year old child and discovered she had been abducted and her
eyes removed. She was later released with a 500 peso bill and a note pinned
to her dress "Thanks for your gift" it said.
The street children of Bogota are hunted by police and thugs and killed
as they are in Brazil and some in Cagayan De Oro Philippines. In Bogota
12,000 children are reported to have been killed, only about 1000 remain.
Many of the bodies were found with missing organs.
In Bogota the children have taken to living in the underground sewer tunnels
which are a feature of that city. Social workers among these destitute children
of Bogota showed journalists mutilated bodies.
One told the International association of Democratic lawyers " For
several years one has spoken about the traffic of organs for transplants
(eyes and kidneys) witnesses to these facts can be found in the barrios,
such as Lucero Alto."
A monthly magazine "El Tempo" reported that in 1989 five street
children were found dead with they eyes surgically removed. Illiterate Parents
of impoverished slum children reported that a doctor told her "Your
son has a brain tumor, it is better I take his eyes out".
That child is in a home for the blind and had no brain tumor.
In the Dominican Republic traffickers would pay from US$700 to $1,500 to
the parents of a child then the child would be taken to a clinic and the
organs removed and sold to the rich from $10,000 to $50,000 each.
The children died soon after from neglect and infection.
Twenty three Dominicans were identified by police as being involved in the
traffic but the well heeled surgeons disappeared. In Haiti that impoverished
island, a Haitian, M.Bourjolly reported to the international organization
Enfants du Monde that there was widespread trafficking in adult and child
organs but how vast was not known.
Other international child welfare organizations have reported that the International
market for adopted children was one source for children's hearts, kidneys
and eyes.
A Chilean child adopted and taken out of the country was found abandoned
minus a kidney. The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued warnings
about the transmission of AIDS through transplantation of organs. 58 people
in the United states are ar risk of AIDS because of this.
Father Barruel a Catholic priest famous for his work advocating human rights
and saving children in Brazil has reported to the world the abduction, mutilation,
and the plundering of children's bodies for their parts.
In Pangasinan a 12 year old boy who was picked up by a brown van and brought
to Manila where with several other children they were drugged and brought
to a building that smelled like a clinic where they kept under guard. This
boy recovered from the drugged sleep and escaped.
In recounting his story it became clear that the children were to undergo
some operation although none were sick. Relatives of a youth who died from
a fall from a Manila overpass claimed that in the hospital he was allowed
to die - for his organs. Although this was never proven.
The Preda Foundation (Upper Kalaklan , Olongapo city) is a member of an
International Study Group gathering information and evidence of such illegal
body organ trade in the Philippines and elsewhere. If any reader knows anything
or has well founded suspicions about such activity please write in strictest
confidentiality.
You could be saving childrens lives.
