Two Nigerian officials were arrested this week for allegedly trying to harvest a child's organ after bringing the victim to the UK in order to harvest their innards.
In a statement, police said that a child has been safeguarded and noted that authorities were working closely with partners on continued support regarding the matter. The incident comes as organ harvesting is still a popular global trade.
Organ Harvesting
A Kenyan hospital was forced to issue a statement to ask locals to stop calling about donating their kidneys because so many individuals were trying to sell theirs to feed their families. Some were selling their organs for as little as $1,500 per kidney.
In China, harvesting of organs from executed prisoners is legal but experts have claimed that in many cases, prisoners were still alive during the horrible operations, as per Futurism.
On Thursday, British police charged the two Nigerians, which includes one politician, with conspiring to bring a child to the region to harvest organs. The two suspects were identified as 60-year-old Ike Ekweremadu, who is a district senator and lawyer, and 55-year-old Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu.
The two individuals appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in west London on Thursday and confirmed that they reside in Nigeria. The suspects were remanded in custody until they are expected in court again on July 7.
According to the Washington Post, the Metropolitan Police said that a child had already been taken to safety. The force said that detectives decided to launch an investigation after they were alerted to potential modern slavery offenses earlier this May.
The arrest comes as Ike was recently made a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln in northern England. In a statement, a university spokesman said that visiting professors "are often, as is in this case, non-resident at the university, unpaid, and advisory."
Global Issue
The spokesman added that the university was deeply concerned about the nature of the allegations against the couple as it was an active police investigation. They added that they were not able to comment further at this point in time.
Forced organ harvesting, which is the illegal act of surgically removing organs from a victim against their will, has been addressed in recent legislation in the UK. A law passed in April partly seeks to disrupt the black market organ trade by making it illegal for Brits to travel overseas to purchase an organ, a practice which is known as "organ tourism."
Despite the sale and trafficking of organs in the UK already being outlawed, the new rules came amid worrying reports of a booming organ trade around the world in recent years. In London's Chinatown, a years-long protest has been staged against the alleged forced organ harvesting from political prisoners.
Some people even consider voluntarily selling their own organs when conditions are desperate enough. In Afghanistan, where a devastating combination of widespread famine and international sanctions have pushed millions of people to the edge of starvation, reports sprouted in early 2022 that people were selling kidneys to feed their families, the Daily Beast reported.
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