Black market for human organs

Spain is the state with the highest number of organ donors, with 32 kidney donors per million inhabitants, according to the World Transplant Registry. But this figure pales when compared to the number of people who wait for a transplant in the country.

In most countries demand is higher than supply. More than 1.6 million people across the world receive dialysis, but there are only 67,000 kidney transplants a year according to the UN Organ Trafficking report published in 2009.

In a system that perpetrates and increases inequality between people, and even more so in a context of global economic crisis, black markets flourish, where access to a transplant and improved health conditions –a universal right of all people– depends on the economic capacity of the person waiting for the organ, always at the cost of repeated abuse towards the groups at the greatest disadvantage. Vulnerable people who can be affected by organ transport are largely poor, immigrants, members of the displaced working class, particularly the homeless and uneducated from poor countries. Often the organs on which this "business" is founded are obtained by force, cheating or even theft.

Film: Tales from the Organ Trade