One-Kidney Village: Desperate Afghans sell kidneys to feed their hungry children, Amid poverty and starvation

 

Men show their kidney operation scars. Pic: Chris Cunningham

Today Afghanistan is facing the worst-known humanitarian crisis after the Taliban took over the country  in August 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans are now tackle with unemployment, neck-deep debt and  poverty.

Desperate Afghans sell kidneys for survival in the face of amid poverty and starvation for as little as $1,500 in an unregulated market to survive and feed their hungry children as they are left with no other choice.

According to an AFP article - some Afghans had to sell their kidney for as little as $1,500.

“There is no law to control how the organs can be donated or sold, but the consent of the donor is necessary,” said Mohammad Wakil Matin, a former top surgeon at a hospital in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, as per a report in Al Jazeera.

Mohamad Bassir Osmani, a surgeon at one of two hospitals where the majority of Herat’s transplants are performed, said “We take written consent and a video recording from them – especially from the donor.”

“We have never investigated where the patient or donor comes from, or how. It’s not our job.”

Nooruddin, who sold his kidney to raise money for his family, shows the scars from the operation at his house in the Khwaja Koza Gar area in Herat [Rouba El Husseini/AFP]

Since the Taliban came into power, the rest of the world still has not officially recognized the legitimacy of their government, it's the Afghan people who're having to resort to ever more extreme measures to survive.

One-Kidney Village,

In a settlement near the town of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan, so many residents have sold their kidneys that it has become known as “One-Kidney Village.” This area seems utterly barren, with no water or shrubbery for miles around  where dozens of residents have sold their organs after word spread among destitute families of the money to be made.

Even Afghan women are forced to sell their body organs to feed their children. "We have no other choice, we have nothing left to sell, we do this to feed our children, I sold my kidney for 250,000 Afghanis [around $2,700]. I had to do it. My husband isn’t working, we have debts,"-  Azyta told Aljazeera.

Now her husband, a daily labourer, is planning on doing the same.

 Azyta, who sold her kidney to raise money for her family, poses for a picture inside her house in Herat [Wakil Kohsar/AFP]

Afghans desperate for money are usually matched by brokers with wealthy patients, who travel to Herat from across the country, and sometimes even from India and Pakistan, it's the recipient who pays both the hospital fees and the donor- As per a report in Al Jazeera.

More than half of the country’s 38 million population suffers from acute hunger, with nearly nine million Afghans at risk of famine, as per the United Nations.

A group of women from the same village who have all sold a kidney for money. Pic: Chris Cunningham

In the wake of US sanctions, the foreign aid that once propped up the country has been slow to return. The country’s economy has almost collapsed after international financial institutions cut funding and the US froze Afghanistan assets.

Last month, US President Joe Biden had decided to withhold about $7bn in Afghan assets, repurposing half of the money as compensation to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. This move was called unfair by Afghanistan.

Amid the worsening humanitarian crisis, aid agencies and experts have called for the lifting of sanctions against the Taliban, as per Al Jazeera. But it remains to be seen whether Afghanistan is able to get the required funds.